Hilarious Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto Moment Going Viral After Dodgers Debut
Yoshinobu Yamamoto made his Cactus League debut on Wednesday, and dazzled the crowd at Surprise Stadium.
The Dodgers' $325 million man threw 19 pitches across two innings of work, with 16 of them coming for strikes. He had three strikeouts and allowed one hit, but quickly got a double play and ended up facing the minimum number of batters.
Yamamoto had a surprise guest (no pun intended) to watch him play on Wednesday: $700 million man Shohei Ohtani.
Ohtani made the trip to Surprise to watch Yamamoto play, saying he wanted to support his fellow Japanese teammate in his debut.
Ohtani also helped Yamamoto in the second inning when there was some confusion on the mound.
After Yamamoto's dominant second inning — in which he only needed eight pitches and struck out two Rangers — he lost track of how many outs he had recorded.
Yamamoto appeared to be doing a walk to get ready to face another batter, but fortunately, he got some assistance from Ohtani who motioned him to get off the mound because the inning was over.
When Yamamoto got back to the dugout, Ohtani had a few words for him:
"You know, we play three outs here in the major leagues."
After Yamamoto's debut, he spoke to the media, and was asked what Ohtani thought of his performance. Yamamoto said Ohtani called it "so-so." Clearly, Ohtani's a harsh critic.
Jokes aside, Yamamoto was absolutely dominant in his debut, and said he used just four of the pitches in his reporter: a fastball, cutter, splitter and curveball. His splitter was nasty, making the opposing hitters look silly in his two innings of work.
Yamamoto will likely make another start early next week, as he gets set to start one of the Dodgers' first two games of the season in Korea.
