Right-hander Lance Lynn not only will make his official return to the St. Louis Cardinals on Saturday evening, the outing will come against the last team with which he pitched in the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Lynn's act of what's-old-is-new-again will come in Los Angeles after he went 7-2 with the Dodgers down the stretch last season and had a 4.36 ERA. He took the loss in one of the three defeats in the National League Division Series when Los Angeles was swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks.
"It was fun," Lynn said of his time with the Dodgers, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "It was a good place to play. The fans are great. The organization took care of the players, so I had a good time."
Lynn started his career with the Cardinals in 2011 and went 72-47 with a 3.38 ERA for St. Louis over six seasons.
At age 36, Lynn is more dependent on his pitching savvy these days. It proved to be a challenge last season when he gave up a major-league-leading 44 home runs for both the Dodgers and Chicago White Sox in 32 combined starts.
In nine career starts against the Dodgers, Lynn is 3-3 with a 4.14 ERA.
The veteran will try to pull the Cardinals out of an early 0-2 hole. They had just one run in their first 16 innings before scoring three in the eighth of Friday's 6-3 loss to the Dodgers. Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said he likes what he sees from his group after facing right-handers Tyler Glasnow and Bobby Miller.
"Both of those guys are really good, and to be able to (rally) and guys feel a little bit of juice, yeah it builds confidence off that," Marmol said. "But I really like where our group's at. I really do."
The Dodgers hope to see right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto finally get settled in Saturday after his rough spring training and a difficult season opener. In the second game of the season last week at South Korea against the San Diego Padres, Yamamoto lasted just one inning and gave up five runs on four hits and a walk with two strikeouts.
It has been an ominous beginning for Yamamoto, who signed the richest deal ever for an MLB pitcher at $325 million over 12 seasons. The 25-year-old said neither nerves nor the pressure to live up to his massive contract played a part in the struggles.
"I feel regret that I just couldn't keep the team in the game from the get-go," Yamamoto said through an interpreter after his debut. "So I do feel a responsibility for it. ... I just have to get ready for the next outing."
Knowing Yamamoto's history in Japan, where he earned the equivalent of the MVP and the Cy Young Award in three consecutive seasons, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is willing to brush off the poor outing and an 8.38 ERA in the spring.
"That's just not who he is," Roberts said.
The Dodgers' offense is delivering as expected. Mookie Betts has a home run in each of the last three games, and Teoscar Hernandez went deep Friday after joining the club on a one-year deal in the offseason.
Shohei Ohtani is 5-for-17 (.294) in his first four games for Los Angeles and has yet to produce his first home run, although he does have two runs and two RBIs.
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