{"id":634940,"date":"2026-03-21T05:34:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T05:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/634940\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T05:34:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T05:34:21","slug":"dodgers-news-yoshinobu-yamamoto-regular-lineup-prep-for-opening-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/634940\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers news: Yoshinobu Yamamoto, regular lineup prep for opening day"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a very good chance the Dodgers lineup on Friday will also be their lineup next Thursday on opening day, including Yamamoto on the mound<\/a>. The only question is whether the right-handed Miguel Rojas would start against Arizona Diamondbacks right-hander Zac Gallen, though perhaps the cachet of the season-saving Game 7 home run and playing his final opening day would outweigh any platoon disadvantage for one night.<\/p>\n

The Padres had a split squad on Friday, and their lineup at Camelback Ranch was not as representative of their season plans, and Yamamoto carved through them like a hot knife through butter, with seven strikeouts in 11 batters in the first three innings.<\/p>\n

Yamamoto finished with five scoreless innings and 68 pitches, 44 for strikes (64.7 percent), allowing only three singles and a walk. He\u2019s the first Dodgers pitcher to complete five innings this spring.<\/p>\n

Freddie Freeman on Friday had a single in his three-at-bats, bringing his Cactus League tally to 40 plate appearances, all of them at Camelback Ranch, pretty much right on schedule for his roughly 47 planned PA this spring<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yamamoto wasn\u2019t the only Dodger on Friday to make his game return from the World Baseball Classic.<\/p>\n

Though Shohei Ohtani pitched on Wednesday afternoon, Friday was his first time back in the lineup since returning, and just his second Cactus League game this spring. He was hitless in three at-bats, with two strikeouts.<\/p>\n

Will Smith started in his first game back since catching Tuesday night\u2019s championship game for Team USA. Smith caught six innings on Friday and was 1-for-3 at the plate with a double.<\/p>\n

Edwin D\u00edaz pitched for the first time since last Saturday for Puerto Rico. On Friday he got two quick outs then allowed a single and two-run home run, his first runs allowed in six games this spring, counting both Cactus League play and the WBC.<\/p>\n

One more day in Arizona for the Dodgers, who host the Athletics on Saturday (11:05 a.m., SportsNet LA<\/a>) at Camelback, with Emmet Sheehan on the mound. Also on Saturday, Dodgers prospects will face White Sox prospects in the spring breakout on the very same field (6:05 p.m.; MLB Network, Amazon<\/a>). It will be fun to see which prospects play in both games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a very good chance the Dodgers lineup on Friday will also be their lineup next Thursday on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2406],"tags":[5,39,4513,1165,4332,4333,774,57,3224,4331,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-634940","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-dodgers","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-dodgers","10":"tag-dodgers-scores-standings","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-la-dodgers","13":"tag-ladodgers","14":"tag-los-angeles","15":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","16":"tag-losangeles","17":"tag-losangelesdodgers","18":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116265540853960200","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}