powers

Freeze frame. There’s Dodgers catcher Will Smith’s follow-through as he watches the ball he just crushed travel toward the wall Saturday.

Now, split screen. Pull up an image of the bobblehead the Dodgers gave out before the game, commemorating Smith’s Game 7 World Series-winning home run. It’s a mirror image.

On his bobblehead night and 31st birthday, Smith delivered a two-run home run in the eighth inning as the Dodgers swept their season-opening series against the Arizona Diamondbacks with a 3-2 victory Saturday at Dodger Stadium.

Cue an aerial shot of the Hollywood sign.

“When you talk about big hits, clutch, Will’s right at the top of the list,” manager Dave Roberts said.

Roberts originally planned to sit Smith. The catcher played in the first two games of the series, and an off day on Sunday would have given him two straight days of rest early in a grueling season.

“We always talk about stuff,” Smith said. “He was going to give me the day off, I just kind of dropped the bobblehead card [for Saturday] and he let me in there.”

A key edit to the script.

Roberts made a few tweaks to the lineup ahead of the Dodgers facing a left-handed starter for the first time this season. Against Eduardo Rodriguez, Roberts swapped first baseman Freddie Freeman and Smith in the batting order; Smith hit fourth and Freeman fifth.

Santiago Espinal also made his Dodgers debut, starting at third base. Roberts said it wouldn’t be a platoon between Espinal and Max Muncy at third, but he wasn’t sure exactly how the playing-time split would play out.

For the first five innings, no one on the Dodgers did much on offense, except for Freeman.

Freeman went hitless in the first two games of the series despite making hard contact. But he had three hits in four at-bats Saturday, including a double in the sixth inning that drove in the Dodgers’ first run.

“Definitely nice to get off the barrel on the first one and hit a flare up the middle,” Freeman said. “And obviously once you get one, you can just kind of rest easy. And then they played the shift on my third hit, and that was nice, because then I was able to stay on the fastball and hit it to left field down the line.”

That hit cut the Diamondbacks’ lead to one run, thanks to a strong showing from the Dodgers’ pitching staff.

Dodgers pitcher Tyler Glasnow delivers during the first inning against the Diamondbacks on Saturday.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Tyler Glasnow turned in a quality start. Holding the Diamondbacks to two runs over six innings, Glasnow used his curveball as his putaway pitch against right-handed hitters, and two-strike sinkers kept left-handed batters off balance, especially deeper into his start. Glasnow recorded six strikeouts.

The Dodgers’ bullpen continued its scoreless streak for the series, as Alex Vesia, Will Klein and Edwin Díaz shut down the Diamondbacks through the last three innings.

For the second straight night, Díaz entered to a live rendition of Timmy Trumpet’s “Narco,” performed by trumpet player Tatiana Tate.

“When Edwin comes in the game, that means something good’s happening for the Dodgers,” Freeman said. “So I’m a fan.”

Although the Dodgers’ offense was quieter than in their other wins of the series, their lineup again proved to be pesky. In all three games, they fell behind 2-0. In all three, they won.

Dodgers catcher Will Smith, left, celebrates with Tesocar Hernández after hitting a two-run home run in the eighth inning Saturday.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

With two outs in the bottom of the eighth inning Saturday, Mookie Betts drew a walk. Then Smith worked a 2-2 count, fouling off three fastballs before he was right on time for one at the top of the strike zone.

“We never feel like we’re out of it,” Smith said. “We keep taking good at-bats, keep believing in each other, keep believing that someone’s going to come up with a big hit.”

On Saturday, it was destined to be Smith.

“Birthday and bobblehead day,” Glasnow said, “It was a magical night.”

Roll credits.

Injury updates

Dodgers utility players Tommy Edman (right ankle surgery recovery) and Kiké Hernández (left elbow surgery recovery) took early batting practice on the field Saturday afternoon.

Roberts has said he expected Edman, on the 10-day injured list, will be an option by at least the end of May. Hernández will be eligible to be activated off the 60-day IL around the same time.

“I’d be shocked if [Hernández] wasn’t ready when that time is up,” Roberts said. “Taking grounders, the way he’s moving, the way he’s throwing, catching, the swing, ball coming off the bat. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was in the lineup tonight.”

March 19 (UPI) — Senate Republicans have blocked a Democrat-led effort to curb President Donald Trump‘s powers to wage war against Iran, as the nearly three-week-old conflict escalates and rattles global energy markets.

The Senate voted 53-47 mostly along party lines Wednesday night to reject a resolution that would withdraw U.S. armed forces from conflict with Iran absent congressional approval.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was the only Republican to join his Democratic colleagues and vote in favor of the motion, while Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was the only member of his caucus to vote against it.

“We do not have a king. We are a democratic republic with a constitution and no one is above the law,” Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.Y., said Wednesday from the Senate floor before the vote.

“This president cannot take us to war without coming through this body. He is not able to do that unless this body supplicates itself before that man and surrenders its responsibilities.”

Senate Democrats forced the vote on the resolution that Booker sponsored as the conflict escalated on Wednesday, with Iran attacking Persian Gulf energy facilities in retaliation for Israel striking its South Pars gas field.

Thirteen American service members have been killed, and another 200 have been wounded so far in the conflict, which is threatening to become a regional war as Iran has retaliated by attacking U.S. bases and its allies in the Middle East.

Democrats of both chambers of Congress have been attempting to rein in Trump’s war powers through resolutions since the war with Iran began late last month. They argue the United States’ ongoing war with Iran violates the Constitution, which mandates that only Congress has the power to declare war.

The conflict has also seen the cost of oil surge. On Thursday, Brent crude reached nearly $110 a barrel, up from an average $71 before the war began on Feb. 28.

Wednesday’s vote is the third time — and the second by the Senate — that the majority Republicans have blocked war powers motions.

From the floor, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “Enough is enough.”

“To my Republican colleagues: The American people are watching. They oppose this war. They expect us to do our jobs,” he said.

“No more senseless wars in the Middle East. No more gas prices shooting through the roof. No more U.S. service members fighting and dying for in endless wars.”

Though the war has exposed fissures in the Republican Party, its members still mostly stand behind the president, who campaigned on ending conflicts and warning Americans that the Democrats would wage war with Iran if they won the White House.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a staunch Trump ally, argued on the Senate floor that the war is intended to prevent Iran from securing a nuclear weapon.

He said during the prior negotiations the United States offered Iran what he called “a lifetime fuel supply for free” if the Islamic regime agreed to hand over its cache of highly enriched uranium. It is believed that Iran had enriched uranium to 60%, according to a recent International Atomic Energy Agency report, which is below weapons grade enrichment at 90%.

Graham compared the Islamic regime of Iran to Nazi Germany.

“If you do not see this as an imminent threat, then you’re blind from your hatred of Trump,” he said.

“There are people on the left and people in my own party that are more afraid of Trump being successful than the Ayatollah having a nuclear weapon. That’s sick.”

PHOENIX — Wait, what? That’s me whenever I see a list of the best pitchers in Major League Baseball that doesn’t include the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the top three — or not until No. 7, like MLB Network’s did.

It’s hard to believe there are professional ball-watchers who want us to believe there are a handful of pitchers better than the Dodgers’ righty who’s steadily filling the fingers on his hand with championship rings.

Respectfully, the Philadelphia Phillies’ Zack Wheeler and Atlanta Braves’ Chris Sale are great. So are the Philadelphia Phillies’ Christopher Sánchez and Boston Red Sox’s Garrett Crochet.

But they’re not greater than Yamamoto.

I’m not saying criminally underrating someone like Yamamoto should be prosecutable, I’m just wondering why anyone would?

“It could have something to do with him not throwing 100 like some other guys,” Dodgers pitcher Ben Casparius said. “But just in terms of pure pitching and what he’s able to do and where he’s able to locate certain pitches and how he’s able to read the hitters?”

Elite.

“In our eyes, I would for sure say Yamamoto is very underrated,” catcher Dalton Rushing said. “I think what goes into your role as a player is your willingness to win, whatever you’ll do to win. I don’t have to go back to the World Series and bring anything up, everyone watched those games, everyone saw what he did.”

Maybe it was a power outage at some folks’ homes during the World Series? Or a subtle form of protest against the Dodgers, champions of capitalism? Maybe Yamamoto’s unassuming everyman act is just that good?

We’ve all marveled at Shohei Ohtani’s Superman quick change, how he’ll go from dynamite pitcher to fearsome hitter in a few bats of an eye. But the truly superheroic character on the Dodgers’ roster is their 5-foot-10, 176-pound ace, Yamamoto.

His Clark Kent-esque transformation, from unimposing nice guy — “the nicest guy in the entire world,” Casparius said — to smirking menace whenever the day needs saving is the stuff of comic book legends.

In last season’s World Series against the Toronto Blue Jays that went the distance and beyond, Yamamoto earned MVP and three of the Dodgers’ four wins.

He had a 1.02 ERA. Got the Dodgers squared away with nine innings of one-run baseball in Game 2. Staved off elimination in Game 6, giving up just one run in six innings. And closed the deal in Game 7 when he pitched 2 ⅔ innings of scoreless relief in the Dodgers’ 5-4, 11-inning victory.

Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto is all smiles as he’s hugged by a teammate following the Game 7 win over the Blue Jays in the World Series.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Oh, and of course Yamamoto was warming in the bullpen when Freddie Freeman hit his walk-off home run to end the 18-inning Game 3 epic at Dodger Stadium.

Yamamoto also showed up for Japan in the World Baseball Classic. He tossed 2 ⅔ scoreless innings in one pool-play start and started again in a knockout game Saturday in Miami, striking out five in four innings and leaving with the lead before Venezuela roared back to win 8-5.

“Part of being a gamer and being a great competitor in big moments is the preparation,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “And when you prepare the right way, that eliminates a lot of doubt and fear. And that, for me, that’s the core of who Yoshinobu is.”

Hyper-competitive and exceptionally nimble, Yamamoto is also super strong — in body and mind.

Bruce Wayne had Alfred Pennyworth; Yamamoto has Yada Sensei, personal trainer Osamu Yada, a 60-something Japanese judo therapist whose unique training regimen has helped turn his star pupil into a world-beater.

So while the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Paul Skenes and Detroit Tigers’ Tarik Skubal are baseball’s kings of the hill, if you had to pick one arm to decide the fate of the universe, whose would it be?

Cue the Yoshinobu Yamamoto anthem.

“He’s probably the best pitcher I’ve ever seen live,” Casparius said. “He’s definitely the guy I’m taking in a must-win game.”

Said pitcher River Ryan: “Yoshi, he is just a natural freak athlete” with a “routine that’s incredible to watch.”

And it isn’t merely the pitcher’s willingness to go to bat for his team and country, all the metrics make his case, too.

Last season, Yamamoto had the fourth-best ERA in the big leagues (2.49) and gave up two or fewer runs in 20 of his 30 starts. He was also tied for first in barrel rate (5.7%), fifth in strikeout rate (29.4%) and seventh in FIP (2.94).

Pick a category, and it paints the picture almost as well as Yamamoto does corners.

I’m not asking people to put some respect on Yamamoto’s name, I’m asking them to put mad respect on it.

“I would say yes, I don’t think he’s fully appreciated for what he’s done,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “Not just yet. He will.”

Eventually even people around Clark Kent have to catch on: This guy might not walk around like he’s a superhero, but he is one.

The US House of Representatives has joined the Senate in killing a war powers resolution that would have forced Donald Trump to end his war on Iran. Although the vote was largely symbolic, Al Jazeera’s Patty Culhane says Democrats are using it to get Republicans on the record.