When the Los Angeles moved Yoshinobu Yamamoto into a five-day break period during the start of last season, the then-right honder began to struggle on the mound.
Yamamoto just began his MLB career after playing seven seasons in Japanese professional baseball. Before coming to MLB, he only pitched once a week.
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The kept him on that schedule for their first seven starts last season. When he began pitching every five days, he was inconsistent. Yamamoto told the Los Angeles Times that these struggles were not fatigued, but the result of routine confusion between his start.
This season, Yamamoto has been taking a five-day rest during his starting schedule. During some injuries in their rotation, he appeared as the ace, posting a career-high 2.59 ERA and 116 strikeouts with a career-high 19 start.
He won the first All-Star selection of his career this season. Yamamoto also remained healthy throughout the season after fleeing last summer after three months of try-up tensions.
Yamamoto said he felt healthy enough to pitch on four days of rest if necessary.
“My body has recovered really well this year,” Yamamoto told the Los Angeles Times. “I often check with my trainers after the game. If this is something like this, I’ll talk about how I can throw in four days, or how I can feel like that. I go through all sorts of such different scenarios every week.
Yamamoto’s new consistency and confidence in his ability to pitch more frequently are crucial for the in the postseason.
Additionally, Los Angeles recently debuted All-Star starting pitcher Tyler Glasnow and two-way player Shohei ohtani on the mound. Blake Snell could return in July, while Sasaki could return in late August.
The ‘ rotation is slowly coming back after a long injury, but Yamamoto is patient with everything.
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Photo credit: Michael McLoone-Immagn Image
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