Camp Stories: Yamamoto shows Dodger hitters ‘incredible’ stuff
by Cary Osborne
A cover band called the Twist Tops played the hits at Camelback Ranch on Saturday next to the lake that divides the main stadium from Field 1.
Their music provided a soundtrack to Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s first live batting practice pitching session on Field 1 against Dodger teammates.
Yamamoto’s 26th and final pitch to a batter was struck and grounded up the middle by Manuel Margot. Yamamoto was done for the day, and the chorus of the Pharrell Williams hit was sung by the Twist Tops.
“Clap along … because I’m happy.”
Mookie Betts, who was standing on deck for the Margot at-bat, obliged with an animated clap. Teammates followed.
Yamamoto faced Betts, Austin Barnes, Freddie Freeman, Max Muncy, Jason Heyward and Margot in a superb display.
Freeman walked away from the batter’s circle saying: “That’s some crazy stuff. I’m glad he’s on our team. That’s command I’ve never seen. Every pitch is intended in a quadrant.”
Yamamoto drew a massive crowd in his bullpen warmup — 30 cameras, more than a dozen teammates, coaches, executives and even players’ children.
Then we went on the mound with all eyes on him and went to work against the six batters, including two former MVPs in Betts and Freeman and four former All-Stars.
“It was good for me to have an opportunity to face actual hitters,” Yamamoto said. “This is not the best yet. I’m going to keep adjusting what I need and then it’s going to keep getting better.”
Freeman’s, Muncy’s and Heyward’s words after facing Yamamoto all had a common theme. The pitches were impressive, but the poise in pitching with all the attention on him was special.
“I went up to him and I said please say ‘incredible’ in Japanese. That was incredible,” Freeman said. “It was just very impressive. The whole package, the calmness to be able to execute when everyone’s watching you is very, very impressive.”
Freeman’s view was a 95–96 mph hour fastball riding in on him. Heyward said he saw two fastballs, two splitters and a cutter.
Yamamoto said his biggest takeaway from the session was that he was able to get a feel for his breaking ball.
The 25-year-old has made a big impression with each public outing this spring — beginning with his two bullpens and now his live BP. The three-time Eiji Sawamura Award winner and three-time Nippon Professional Baseball Pacific League MVP has also drawn the praise of Dodger manager Dave Roberts.
“I’m very confident that he can be a frontline starter,” Roberts said. “I think the first thing I see is his ability to command the baseball with his fastball, he can throw to all quadrants. And then you look at the pitch mix, the weapons that he has — fastball curveball, slider, the split — and to be able to throw those for strikes, to get left-handed hitters out, right-handed hitters out. And the last part, he’s very intelligent, very curious, and he’s going to be prepared and understand how to attack Major League hitters.”
