Why Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s one-run brilliance only leads to more frustration for Dodgers ace

SAN DIEGO – Yoshinobu Yamamoto was upset.

You could see it in his face. You could hear it in his voice.

In his mind, he was responsible for the Dodgers’ 1-0 loss to the San Diego Padres on Monday night at PetCo Park.

Never mind that he pitched seven innings.

Never mind that he struck out eight batters.

Never mind that he held the Padres to three hits.

One of the hits was a first-inning home run by Miguel Andujar, and Yamamoto said in Japanese, “It decided the game.”

Yamamoto sounded almost exasperated with himself.

He was aware of the circumstances. Of his first-inning troubles. Of his home-run problems. Of how pitching opposite him was Michael King.

“Today, the opposing starter was a really good pitcher, and I really think it was bad that I gave up a home run like that in the first inning and let them take the lead,” Yamamoto said. “I wanted to be able to pitch well enough to keep it a 0-0 game.”

Yamamoto has picked up only one win in his last six starts, his season record now standing at 3-4. As dominant as he has looked at times, he still hasn’t delivered a signature performance reflecting his aspirations of a Cy Young Award or status as the Dodgers’ opening-day starter.

His showdown with King offered him the elements required for such a performance, but he was derailed by a familiar obstacle: the first inning.

Yamamoto has a first-inning earned-run average of 7.00. Remove the opening frame and his ERA would be 2.47.

He made efforts to address the problem, only to be tripped up by it again in a game in which first place in the NL West was at stake. The Dodgers were leapfrogged in the standings by the Padres, who now have a half-game lead over them.

The home run was the ninth allowed by Yamamoto in his nine starts this season. He gave up 14 homers last year in 30 starts.

The culprit this time was an elevated splitter on the inside part of the plate that Andujar blasted into the left-field stands. Yamamoto said he intended for the pitch to be lower.

“It was a really frustrating miss,” he said.

Yamamoto recovered to complete seven innings after a 27-pitch first inning, explaining that he started focusing more on the pause in the middle of his delivery.

Without offering details, Yamamoto said of his first-inning problems, “To me, it’s really clear what I have to do. I think I can improve that.”

Others were considerably more charitable in how they viewed Yamamoto’s start.

“Yoshinobu made one mistake,” Freddie Freeman said.

But the Dodgers’ offense didn’t provide Yamamoto with any margin for error. King blanked the Dodgers over seven innings before turning the game over to the San Diego’s celebrated bullpen.

When facing King, Freeman said, “You’re trying to cover realistically 30 inches because you have ball-to-strike pitches, you got backdoor sliders that are starting at balls and coming back, you got front-door sinkers for lefties, so it’s not just the whole plate you’re worried about. You’re going to worry about a whole lot of different things.”

Which isn’t to say the Dodgers didn’t have chances. In each of the last four innings, they had runners in scoring position, including in the ninth inning when Padres closer Mason Miller walked the first two batters on nine pitches.

“Unfortunately,” manager Dave Roberts said, “we couldn’t put anything together.”

None of that was of any consolation for Yamamoto, who seemed to be bothered more by this loss than by the one in his previous start. Six days earlier, he gave up five runs in the first 6 ⅓ innings of a defeat to the San Francisco Giants, but he came out of that start extremely upbeat, declaring he was “almost there.”

Once again, he was “almost there” on Monday night.

Once again, he pitched the kind of game that left him searching for more.

---

Download The California Post App, follow us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters