Yamamoto

PHOENIX — It’s only fitting that the pitcher who recorded the Dodgers’ final eight outs of the World Series will take the mound on opening day, as the club tries to pick up where it left off in 2025 and chase a third straight championship in 2026.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Monday that World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto will toe the rubber for the March 26 opener at Dodger Stadium against the Arizona Diamondbacks — the second straight year he’s had the honor and the first time at home, after pitching last season’s opener in Tokyo against the Chicago Cubs.

Roberts added Yamamoto is expected to return to Camelback Ranch soon, after participating in the World Baseball Classic with Team Japan. The Samurai Warriors, seeking a second straight WBC title, were eliminated by Team Venezuela Saturday night in the quarterfinals.

Yamamoto is expected to make one more start in the Cactus League before opening day, although the date has yet to be scheduled, according to Roberts.

Shohei Ohtani returned to Dodgers camp Monday morning, and Roberts plans to have a conversation with him soon about configuring his throwing plan leading up to regular season play. Per Roberts, Ohtani threw four innings in a simulated game while with Team Japan last Thursday.

“He’s going to get here and throw a bullpen,” Roberts said, adding: “I’m trying to figure out when we can get him into a game, but it should be here in the next day or two, to take some at bats. But as far as his progression, there’s going to be a bullpen soon, and [we’re] trying to figure out what day he’s going to pitch this week. It should be this week, but I’m not sure which day yet.”

Ohtani has not pitched in a Cactus League game and did not pitch in the WBC. Roberts does not expect the four-time MVP to be fully stretched out by the start of the regular season. Still, as Roberts notes, he’s further along than he was at this time a year ago, when he was working his way back from Tommy John surgery.

“I think this year we’re certainly north of that, I don’t see how we won’t be able to get to three or four innings in a major league game, so that’s certainly a better jumping-off point than last year, so we’ll see how it goes,” Roberts said.

Beyond Yamamoto, Ohtani and trusty veteran Tyler Glasnow, the Dodgers’ back end of the rotation is still taking shape. Though Roberts had considered a six-man rotation to begin regular season play, he indicated Monday that he expects the club to use a five-man rotation, noting that things are still “fluid.”

Last week, Roberts said he “didn’t see a world in which Roki Sasaki doesn’t break [camp] as a starter.” That would leave one rotation spot up for the taking, with 25-year-old Justin Wrobleski, 26-year-old Emmet Sheehan and 27-year-old River Ryan among those in the running.

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.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Much has been made of the Dodgers’ exorbitant spending, magnified by a pair of World Series titles for the franchise, as Major League Baseball enters the final year of the current collective bargaining agreement.

The Dodgers open 2026 with a record $381 million payroll, while having over $1 billion in deferrals. As if signing Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernández and Blake Snell, and extending Tyler Glasnow and Will Smith weren’t enough, the club once again opened up its wallet this winter, spending a combined $309 million on four-time All-Star outfielder Kyle Tucker and three-time reliever of the year Edwin Díaz.

Relief pitcher Blake Treinen, one of the longest-tenured players on the Dodgers heading into his seventh season with the team, did not mince words when asked about how outsiders view the organization.

“Perception is built from the media and maybe owners that don’t like what the Dodgers are doing because they would have to do something similar,” Treinen said earlier this week. “And I say to that, ‘Maybe you’re in the wrong business.’”

Treinen thinks more teams should spend the way that the Dodgers do.

“Is it a bad thing that the people who pay our checks and our salaries want a winning product?” Treinen said. “If you’re going to complain about a team willing to do what it takes to win, then I think you’re in the wrong business. And, if you win, to say that you lose money by winning is a wild statement, so I think the perception is more or less if you don’t like what the Dodgers are doing, either take a look in the mirror or look at the people who aren’t putting a product on the field.”

Treinen went on to say that teams don’t necessarily need to be lavish spenders in order to compete, pointing to how the Milwaukee Brewers posted baseball’s best record a season ago, with the 22nd-highest payroll. The Brewers bested the Chicago Cubs in the NL Central by five games, despite having a payroll nearly $100 million lower than their rival, and reached the National League Championship Series.

“You don’t always have to spend money to be great, look at the Brewers,” Treinen said. “But to say that you can’t compete — like they did — is a wild thing, because [they had] the best record in baseball last year. Draft and development is a big deal, a lot of teams have leaned into it. So, if you either invest heavily in one or the other, and the Dodgers have done a great job of doing both and that’s why players sign here. If you don’t like it, then maybe find a new business model.”

How the Dodgers operate has garnered some praise — the Padres’ Manny Machado and the Phillies’ Bryce Harper weighed in on the subject early in spring training — but the front office wasn’t really seeking it out.

“We’re not looking externally for validation,” Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes said earlier this month at Camelback Ranch. “The validation is winning championships and putting out as good a team as we can each and every year, and all we’re trying to do is get a little bit better each and every season, with the goal of winning championships. [Our] coaching staff, our players I think view it as that. Good, bad or indifferent, the external stuff is something we can’t worry about.”

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, speaking at Cactus League media day earlier this month, said the fixation on the money spent makes people miss the things they do well.

“It does get lost, the things that we do well,” Roberts said. “Scouting and player development, I think we do as well as anybody in baseball … to get superstars to play well every night, to put out a good product every single night, I think we do a good job at that.”

“That’s why the biggest conversation should be that instead of a payroll question,” Roberts added. “Why are we good for baseball? Because our players play the game the right way.”

TEMPE, Ariz. — Dodgers starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto toed the rubber Saturday for the team’s Cactus League opener against the Angels at Tempe Diablo Stadium with the expectation that it would be his only start before joining Team Japan for next month’s World Baseball Classic.

Even manager Dave Roberts believed that was the case as he came out to lift his star pitcher with two outs in the bottom of the second inning.

“Doc came to the mound, and he said, ‘Good luck in the WBC,’” Yamamoto said via interpreter Yoshihiro Sonoda. “But actually, I have one more game to pitch.”

After giving up one earned run, three hits and striking out three in his 30-pitch outing, Yamamoto said he believes his next start will be on Friday against the San Francisco Giants at Scottsdale Stadium.

Yamamoto cruised through the first inning, striking out third baseman Yoan Moncado swinging and getting shortstop Zach Neto to look at a called strike three on a darting sinker.

But then the Dodgers, who had scored three runs in the top of the first, sent 11 men to the plate, scoring six runs on five hits, two walks and a hit batter in a half-inning that took nearly 30 minutes. Yamamoto believes the long break between innings may have disrupted his workflow, contributing to a messy second inning.

A dropped fly ball on the warning track in left field by Teoscar Hernández spelled trouble for Yamamoto, scoring a run and allowing Jo Adell to reach second base with nobody out. Yamamoto struck out the next hitter, getting left fielder Josh Lowe to swing through a splitter, before allowing back-to-back outfield line drives to catcher Logan O’Hoppe and second baseman Christian Moore. After Bryce Teodosio flied out for the second out of the inning, Yamamoto’s day was done.

Yamamoto reached into his five-pitch repertoire Saturday, mixing in six fastballs, eight splitters, five sinkers, four cutters, four curveballs and three sliders. His fastball sat between 91 and 93 mph, topping out at 94.9 mph.

“I was looking for some stuff I needed to get back before I go back to Japan and join the team,” Yamamoto said. “I was looking forward to the feeling, the delivery and those things.”

Fans pack Diablo Stadium for Saturday’s game between the Angels and Dodgers.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

He added: “Yesterday’s practice, I was already feeling good. And then, somehow I was able to carry that to today’s game, especially the first inning. I think I was great, but due to the gap between innings, that affected me a little bit.”

With Yamamoto’s time being limited with the Dodgers before the WBC, Roberts spoke pregame Saturday about what he hopes to see from his star pitcher in the time leading up to the event.

“I think that obviously, him going and pitching for Team Japan, he’s going to be trying to ramp it up and get prepared,” Roberts said. “So, I think it’s just more of what he does [on] strike one, [how he] uses secondaries, and be efficient and get some outs.”

Though Yamamoto will pitch once more before leaving for the WBC, Roberts told reporters that he isn’t concerned about the WBC interrupting Yamamoto’s preparation for the regular season.

“I think I’m confident because there’s no exact science on ramping up early and success, or being methodical and not participating to result in success during the season,” Roberts said. “There’s just no exact science. For me, and for all of us, you’re just believing in the player, knowing that he knows what it takes to be ready for a season and he takes care of himself, so I think for me, it’s an easy way to think and wrap my head around, just kind of believing in him, trusting him.”

Etc.

Dodgers right fielder Teoscar Hernandez hugs Dodgers manager Dave Roberts after scoring in the first inning.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

Just over a week into camp, utilityman Hyeseong Kim has already made a strong first impression, as he vies for more playing time in his second season. On Saturday, he went two for three with three RBIs to help spark the Dodgers’ offensive outburst. Elsewhere, the top three hitters in the lineup — Shohei Ohtani, Hernández and Andy Pages — combined for six hits in nine at-bats with two RBIs. … The Dodgers claimed outfielder Jack Suwinski from the Pittsburgh Pirates. To make room on the 40-man roster, the Dodgers transferred utilityman Kiké Hernández to the 60-day injured list.