Ryu Hyun-jin and Darvish are not famous...0.90 → 3.644488 billion ace's two faces, stinging criticism
Jul 14, 2025
|
Los Angeles Dodgers' Yoshinobu Yamamoto finished his last appearance in the first half. Major League website MLB.com pointed out that Yamamoto performed like an ace in the first half, but he also saw something to supplement.
Yamamoto started the last game of the first half against the San Francisco Giants at Oracle Park in San Francisco, California on the 14th (Korea time) and pitched seven innings of three hits, two walks and seven strikeouts. The Dodgers won 5-2 after a close game in the 11th inning of extra time.
Yamamoto shocked the Milwaukee Brewers on the 8th, when he took the mound just before, with only four hits (one homer) and two walks in ⅔ innings, no strikeouts, and five runs (three earned runs). It was a personal minimum inning humiliation since his Major League debut, but he quickly grabbed his mind by pitching seven scoreless innings in the very next appearance.
Yamamoto went 8-7 with 104 ⅓ innings, 116 strikeouts and a 2.59 ERA in 19 games in the first half. In terms of ERA, he ranked 11th overall in the Major League and 5th in the National League.
MLB.com said Yamamoto performed well enough in the first half, but it is regrettable considering the early part of the season when the National League Cy Young Award was expected. The media expected that Yamamoto's ups and downs began with the difference in rest days.
MLB.com pointed to the change, "'Yamamoto had a 0.90 ERA in the first seven games of the season when he pitched six days off, but he had a 3.64 ERA in 12 games since changing his pattern to a five-day break.'"
In the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), a six-day rest rotation is common. This is the point that the U.S. media expressed concern early when Yamamoto dominated the NPB and challenged the Major League. He may not be able to adapt to the short pitching interval of the Major League Baseball. Yamamoto was not sluggish enough to say he couldn't adjust, but he showed figures that can be said to have been clearly affected by the short rest day.
Yamamoto said in an interview with local U.S. reporters that `I think the gap between when I'm good and when I'm bad is too much. I think it's a problem that I need to supplement in the second half of this season" he said.
|
|
Yamamoto ranked first in the National League with a 1.80 ERA until May. In May, MLB.com ranked first in the National League with 22 first-place votes in a mock vote for 37 major league experts. Yamamoto was widely expected to write the first history of Asian pitchers.
However, Yamamoto became quite distant from winning the Cy Young Award in two months. However, the Dodgers cannot give Yamamoto preferential treatment to take the mound every six days. Yamamoto has no choice but to grow a stamina that can withstand the mound every five days.
In the previous Cy Young Award voting, Ryu Hyun-jin ranked second in the National League in 2019 and Darvish Yu, a Japanese pitcher who played for the Texas Rangers in 2013, ranked second in the American League. Based on the total score, Darvish is the No. 1 Asian pitcher with 93 points.
Yamamoto drew attention in December 2023 when he successfully signed a 12-year, large-scale contract worth $325 million (about 448.8 billion won) with the Dodgers. It was a contract that broke the record for the highest amount and longest period of FA history for major league pitchers in Asia as well as Asia. Yamamoto has been treated tremendously, but the reality is that Ryu Hyun-jin and Darvish have not yet achieved the reputation they have built in the major leagues.
|
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
