NEW YORK — As the baseball world orbited around him Friday, Yoshinobu Yamamoto hardly seemed to care.
Not in the Dodgers’ pregame clubhouse, when Yamamoto sat alone at his locker, then with his legs propped up on a black leather couch, quietly reviewing scouting reports as a gaggle of reporters swarmed the otherwise empty room around him.
Not as he took the field hours later at Yankee Stadium for the opening game of this weekend’s highly anticipated Dodgers-Yankees series, receiving a chorus of boos from a fan base that had hoped to see him in pinstripes this season.
And certainly not over a scoreless seven-inning, seven-strikeout start in the Dodgers’ 2-1 extra-innings win, with Yamamoto’s gem eventually setting up Teoscar Hernández for a game-deciding two-run double in the 11th inning.
“[That was] his best outing as a Dodger,” manager Dave Roberts said.
More than that, it was the perhaps first time Yamamoto looked every bit of a superstar player, himself.
“I enjoyed the atmosphere,” Yamamoto said through his interpreter. “That was a great stadium. I enjoyed the whole game.”
In the build-up to this week’s series in the Bronx — a showdown between not only two of MLB’s most historic franchises, but two first-place teams who could meet in the World Series come late October — most of the attention surrounded the litany of former MVPs and perennial All-Stars in the two clubs’ lineups.
Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman for the Dodgers. Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Juan Soto for New York (although, Soto missed Friday’s game with a forearm injury, and is questionable to play this weekend).
“I’m excited to see the stars show out,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said before the game. “We have some of the best players on the planet playing here.”
Where exactly Yamamoto fit into that celebrity constellation was less clear.
The 25-year-old Japanese right-hander did earn the biggest contract for a pitcher (excluding Ohtani) in MLB history this offseason, signing with the Dodgers — despite heavy interest from several other big-market clubs, the Yankees chief among them — on a 12-year, $325-million deal.
He came to MLB as one of the most decorated pitchers in the history of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, as well, winning that league’s equivalent of the Cy Young Award three times to drum up interest from several big-market MLB clubs — the Dodgers and Yankees, who were widely seen as his other likeliest landing spot, chief among them.
“The Yankees are a great team, and I appreciate their interest in me during the negotiation [process in free agency],” Yamamoto said. “But when I face them, it’s just a normal game.”
Despite all that, Yamamoto still entered Friday with few signature moments in his rookie MLB season.
His ERA was 3.32, solid but also outside the top 35 in the majors. He’d yet to face an offense anywhere near as potent as New York’s, even with Soto out of the lineup Friday.
“It’s going to be a good test for him,” Roberts said. “But I know, for sure, the moment, the stage won’t be too big.”
Such intuition was spot on.
Three hours before first pitch, as the rest of his teammates emptied out of a clubhouse teeming with more than two dozen reporters, Yamamoto stayed put. Hat backward. Headphones on. Seemingly in his own world, unfazed by the spotlight of what many billed as the biggest series so far of this MLB season.
“He’s pitched in a lot of big games in his career,” Roberts said, referring to Yamamoto’s Japanese career and World Baseball Classic championship with Japan last year. “This is just going to be another experience for him.”
Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitches to New York Yankees star Aaron Judge during the first inning Friday at Yankee Stadium.
(Frank Franklin II / Associated Press)
Once he took the mound, however, Yamamoto didn’t pitch like it was just another game.
From the jump, the undersized 5-foot-11 right-hander found increased velocity in his fastball, throwing 29 pitches at 97 mph or harder (plus another six at 96.9 mph). He’d eclipsed that mark only three times previously all year.
“I think that was just my mechanics working very well today,” Yamamoto said.
“Any time you have more velo,” catcher Will Smith added, “it helps.”
Yamamoto’s secondary stuff also looked sharper than normal, as he used the splitter and slider to complete four of his strikeouts.
“The things he did in Japan,” Teoscar Hernández said, “he showed today,”
Asked later how he thought Friday might compare to a postseason atmosphere, Yamamoto shyly grinned.
Dodgers teammates (from left) Jason Heyward, Teoscar Hernández and Andy Pages celebrate after a 2-1 win over the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium on Friday.
(Frank Franklin II / Associated Press)
“I didn’t think about October,” he said. “Just trying to execute my pitches like usual.”
Did Roberts learn anything about the pitcher, who has been tasked with anchoring the rotation alongside fellow offseason addition Tyler Glasnow this year?
“No,” Roberts said, definitively. “I knew he wasn’t gonna run from this moment.”
The Yankees — who entered the night with an eight-game winning streak and the best record in the majors — did stress Yamamoto early. Judge doubled in the first. Two runners reached in the second on a Kiké Hernández error and a Trent Grisham single.
But after escaping both of those jams — on a pair of wipeout sliders for inning-ending strikeouts — Yamamoto cruised the rest of the way.
He didn’t allow another hit. He retired 15 of the last 17 batters he faced. In the final two innings of his career-high 106-pitch outing, he worked around his only two walks of the game, as well, fanning Stanton with an elevated fastball to end the sixth before inducing a double-play grounder from DJ LeMahieu with his final pitch.
As he walked off the rubber for the last time, Yamamoto clinched his arms and let out a celebratory scream.
“I do think there’s a little bit of, it’s still Yankee Stadium,” Roberts said, unconvinced mechanics alone led to Yamamoto’s increased velocity. “I think that had something to do with the velo.”
The game remained scoreless long after Yamamoto left the mound.
The Yankees stranded the bases loaded in the eighth. Both teams failed to score their automatic extra-inning baserunner in the 10th. And not until Hernández found the left-center field gap in the 11th, scoring Ohtani (who went 0 for five) from second base and Freeman (0 for two with two walks) from first, did either team finally manage to get a runner across the plate.
“It’s the old adage of, good pitching beats good hitting,” Roberts said. “You can run out as many good hitters as you can find.”
The Yankees got one run back in the 11th inning, when Judge (two for three with two walks) lined an RBI single off Yohan Ramírez — a typically low-leverage reliever asked to save the game for the Dodgers’ worn-out bullpen.
The Yankees, however, mustered nothing else.
By then, Yamamoto had kept them quiet for too long. In a series all about star power, the Japanese pitcher made sure his name was atop the list.
