Yoshinobu Yamamoto strong for six against Padres

He’ll be followed by Emmet Sheehan on Saturday and Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Sunday. The Dodgers have not announced when Shohei Ohtani will return to the rotation. That makes it likely that it’ll be Justin Wrobleski and Eric Lauer in some order for the first two games against the Phillies in Philadelphia to open next week.

Yamamoto allowed five hits, and he struck out six while issuing four walks. The normally effective — effective seems like an understatement — was solid over the first five innings with just one run allowed, but fell apart in the sixth while allowing a five-piece; including a three-run homer from James McCann. Yamamoto’s first half was excellent despite this clunker, and he’ll be one of the first starters for the Dodgers after the break. It’s worth noting he’s not pitching in the All-Star break, so fantasy managers won’t have to wait long.

Yamamoto was an All-Star last year but was ineligible to pitch in the game after starting the Sunday before the game. This year, he’s eligible and will attend but will not pitch. Roberts gave no reason for the decision. Yamamoto is pitching tonight against the Diamondbacks.

Yamamoto was brilliant, allowing just three hits and two walks to go with the aforementioned punchouts. He generated 16 swings and misses over exactly 100 pitches, and six of those came on a splitter that the Padres simply couldn’t handle. That’s now 13 quality starts for Yamamoto over 16 chances, and his ERA is now an outstanding 2.49 over that timeframe. He was named an All-Star prior to Saturday’s victory, but his final start before that game comes Saturday against the Diamondbacks in Arizona.

It’s Yamamoto’s 11th quality start in 14 tries, but he fell to 7-5 anyway. He’s 7-0 when the Dodgers score at least four runs in his starts and 0-5 when they score two runs or fewer. Next up for him is a start in San Diego. His 4.97 career ERA versus the Padres is his highest mark versus any of the teams he’s faced three times or more, but he did pitch well against them in a tough loss earlier this season, allowing one run in seven innings.

Yamamoto also retired the final 22 batters he faced against the Angels on Sunday, so he was working on a streak of 45 retired in a row until Mookie Betts booted a grounder with two outs in the eighth. Yamamoto got a groundout afterwards, but he gave up a homer to Tristan Peters to start the ninth. He then retired one more batter and was lifted at 109 pitches. Yamamoto was looking for his first MLB no-hitter after throwing two in Japan. The Dodgers’ last no-hitters were a combined effort in 2018 in which Walker Buehler started and went six innings and one from Clayton Kershaw in 2014. Yamamoto improved to 7-4 with a 2.52 ERA. He’ll get the Orioles next.

Yamamoto gave up one run on two hits in the first inning. The pressure was off after he was spotted nine runs in the bottom of the first. He went on to toss seven more no-hit innings as the Angels weren’t able to do anything against the 27-year-old right-hander after the opening frame. He struck out four. Yamamoto will take a 2.68 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, and a 73/15 K/BB ratio across 77 1/3 innings into a start against the White Sox in Chicago next Saturday.

Yamamoto struck out just three today after fanning eight in each of his previous three starts. It didn’t prove to be an issue, though. All seven hits he allowed were singles, and he induced double-play balls in both the first and sixth innings. It’s his eighth quality start in 10 tries, and he’ll take a 3.09 ERA into his next start against the Phillies.

Yamamoto gave up a homer to the second batter he faced tonight and that was enough to drop him to 3-4, even though he struck out eight and allowed only two other hits. Even the homer was a little cheap; it was 98.1 mph off the bat of Miguel Andujar, and it would have stayed in play in 13 of the 30 ballparks. Yamamoto will likely make his next start Sunday against the Brewers.

Yamamoto retired the first eight batters before Eric Haase took him deep for a solo homer in the third inning. He then stranded a runner in the fourth and gave up a pair of solo homers in the fifth to Harrison Bader and again to Haase for his second of the game. After a clean sixth, Yamamoto returned for the seventh and allowed two hits and recorded one out, leaving at 93 pitches. Both inherited runners would come in to score. He generated 15 whiffs to strike out eight. The 27-year-old right-hander will take a 3.60 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, and a 48/10 K/BB ratio across 50 innings into a start against the Padres in San Diego on Monday.