The Los Angeles Dodgers completed a sweep of the Washington Nationals with a narrow 2-1 victory, led by a strong outing from Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
The right-hander pitched six innings while giving up no runs on four hits. He added seven strikeouts to just one walk.
But perhaps the most impressive part of Yamamoto’s outing was his fastball, which he has not had much success with at the Major League level to begin his career.
Opposing hitters were batting .335 with a .710 slugging percentage against his four-seam fastball, and that often led to him getting into jams or allowing runs.
On Thursday, Yamamoto made an effort to improve his fastball, mainly by focusing on his command of his secondary pitches, via SportsNet LA:
“I was focusing on being careful, with my command especially, and also with my offspeed. I was also able to throw them in the strike zone, and as a result, my fastball was more effective.
That focus paid off for Yamamoto, and his fastball became his most effective pitch by called strikes + whiff rate (CSW%), posting an elite 43%.
Yamamoto threw his fastball 40 times, and he recorded 17 called strikes plus whiffs with it. His curveball also posted a 42% CSW%, and the splitter was effective as well.
Yamamoto only ended up allowing one hit on his fastball, a single to Joey Meneses, and it led to him turning in what he felt was the best start of his MLB career:
“So far up to this point, yes that was my best.”
Outside of his disastrous start in South Korea, Yamamoto has been pitching near an elite level. He has had a few issues when innings start to fall apart on him, but the overall body of work and underlying metrics paint an impressive picture.
Overall this season, he’s thrown 28 innings with a 3.54 ERA and 2.64 FIP while striking out 31.9% of hitters and walking 5.2%.
Since the season began stateside, Yamamoto has pitched to a 2.00 ERA and 2.55 FIP across 27 innings while posting the fourth-best strikeout to walk ratio in MLB at 28%.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s ‘learning curve’
The Dodgers expected a bit of a learning curve with Yamamoto as he was switching leagues and adjusting to life in a new country, but they have so far been impressed with what he’s shown on the mound.
“There’s certainly a learning curve,” Roberts recently said. “But if you look at the strikeout to walk, things that can be predictive, it’s as good as any starter in baseball if you take out that first inning in Korea.
“He’s striking out a lot of guys, he doesn’t walk many guys. But there is that learning curve of guys making adjustments with two strikes, guys in scoring position, you got to make that one extra pitch. So absolutely things like that.
“So, again, I think that each start, he’s gotten better.”
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