Dodgers RHP earns the win with five strong innings on opening day. He retired his final nine batters faced.

Taking the field without two MVP hitters, and with a bit of rustiness natural to every start of the season, the Dodgers needed a strong performance from Yoshinobu Yamamoto to win this one, and they got just that. Performing very differently than in his Dodgers and MLB debut last year, Yamamoto tossed five strong innings to pave the way for a Dodger victory.

Looking to establish that heater early on, Yamamoto started the game with seven straight four-seam fastballs, six of which came against Ian Happ, the Cubs’ leadoff batter. A patient hitter in his own right, Happ spit at all six heaters Yamamoto threw, and after a 2-0, 50/50 call didn’t go his way, Yamamoto ended up walking the Cubs batter. That would turn out to be the only free pass the Cubs would get in the whole game.

Perhaps the biggest compliment one can give to Yamamoto in this outing has nothing to do with the actual final line, but more so the adaptability he showed in not ideal circumstances.

Without necessarily one exact moment to point to, it became clear that Yamamoto didn’t have the best feel for his curveball in this game, a curve he threw basically just as much as the splitter last season (24.1-percent splitter usage in 2024, compared to 23.1-percent curveballs).

Despite not really having that pitch, Yamamoto made due primarily with a heater-splitter combo he went to in about 80 percent of the time, and that proved more than enough to stifle Cubs hitters. Yamamoto wasn’t a strikeout machine, far from it, only recording 4 across his five innings of work. That being said, three of the punchouts he did get came with the splitter or four-seamer, also mixing in a cutter in there for a fourth one.

While Shota Imanaga left the game without allowing a run in his four innings, there was a clear difference in efficiency between the two starters. Imanaga needed 69 pitches to get through four as the Dodgers hitters worked long counts, despite not having necessarily anything to show for against him. Yamamoto was much more in line with his regular self, needing only 72 pitches to get through five. And while the Dodgers’ hitters left those first four innings with nothing in terms of runs, it gave them a larger number of chances against the Cubs’ bullpen, and they capitalized on that.

Back to Yamamoto, another significant point is also how he got stronger as this game went on, and by the time he finished the fifth inning, he had retired the last nine batters faced. The primary reason why he left this game was a sense of extra caution for a somewhat rushed Opening Day. Under normal circumstances, the Dodgers’ starter had plenty of gas for one, maybe two more innings without too much pushing.

On a more personal note for the Dodgers’ starter, this performance might have been a bit of a cathartic experience after all he wasn’t able to do against the Padres one year ago. This time around, facing a fellow Japanese star in his home country, Yamamoto showed why the Dodgers were willing to sign him to the most lucrative deal ever for a pitcher.