It was a concerning Saturday night for the Los Angeles Dodgers and star pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto as he was taken out of his start against the Kansas City Royals after two scoreless innings. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts would speak after the game and talk about how likely Yamamoto is to be placed on the 15-day injured list.
As pointed out by the Los Angeles Times, there was a point in the game where pitching coach Mark Prior alerted Roberts about a problem with Yamamoto after the top of the second inning along with an athletic trainer below the dugout. He would then be pulled from the game as the team would cite “tricep tightness” being the injury where Roberts revealed to the media after the 7-2 loss to the Royals that the star pitcher could make his way to the injured list.
“It’s a high possibility,” Roberts said when asked if Yamamoto will be put on the injured list as a precaution via Mike DiGiovanna of The Los Angeles Times. “But we’ll get our doctors involved, and see if there’s more to it.”
Roberts discusses the tightness felt from the Dodgers star before start
It was also revealed that Yamamoto had felt some tightness going into the game but it was perceived more as normal as pitchers feel sore after any start. Roberts doubled down on that notion saying that the team did not feel “he couldn't make the start,” since he was already pushed back from his last start as well.
“I obviously wasn’t part of that conversation,” Roberts said. “But there was no point in time where we felt he couldn’t make the start going into today or today. Because if that was the case, he wouldn’t have made the start.”
“He felt some soreness after his last start, and we pushed him back,” Roberts continued. “During a season, pitchers are always going to be sore, but he said he felt good enough to go. We wouldn’t pitch him if we felt he was going to put himself in harm’s way. If we had any inkling that all he could muster was two innings, we wouldn’t have pitched him tonight. … He had soreness during the week, which is why we pushed him back, but I didn’t know until the second inning that he couldn’t go back out for the third.”
Yamamoto talks how he felt going into the start against the Royals
Talking about the aforementioned push back, he was supposed to start against the Texas Rangers last Thursday, but felt tightness after a stellar outing against the New York Yankees where he threw a season-high 106 pitches. There is no doubt that the Dodgers. want to be careful with Yamamoto as he signed a 12-year, $325 million deal in December as he talked about feeling the issue.
“I was feeling it a couple days ago,” Yamamoto said through his interpreter.” But today, that tightness was gone.”
“I was very aware of it, but it was not that serious at that point,” Yamamoto continued. “Then, as I was pitching, it started [to get worse].”
Roberts would also address the thought of an issue being lost in translation, but the manager in his ninth season with Los Angeles would shoot that notion down. While the team knew Yamamoto was sore, there was no feeling that “he shouldn't have made the start” against Kansas City.
“I knew that he was sore going into the start, but I didn’t feel there was any soreness that would put him in harm’s way today, so I don’t see how that’s lost in translation,” Roberts said. “There was nothing that we heard, either from the coaching staff or myself, that felt he shouldn’t have made the start today. There was nothing.”
Yamamoto's issue wasn't result of last Dodgers start
Something else worth monitoring about Yamamoto's injury is that while some would automatically believe the last grueling outing against the Yankees was the cause, that would not be the case. Instead, it was the “recovery process” before the start to the Royals that caused more tightness to the triceps as said by Yamamoto himself via The Los Angeles Times.
“The last outing was not really directly related to this tightness,” Yamamoto said. “It’s more during the recovery process this week.”
After Yamamoto, the Dodgers would use five more pitchers though the game was highlighted by Blake Treinen who earned four runs in the sixth inning which started the hot streak for Kansas City's offense. As for Los Angeles, they could not muster any more offense to match up with their opponents after scoring two runs in the fourth inning.
While the team awaits an actual timeline for Yamamoto, he currently has a 2.92 ERA, 84 strikeouts, and a 6-2 record so far this season. The Dodgers are still at the top of the NL Central with a 43-29 record as they look to win the series Sunday evening.
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