{"id":654492,"date":"2026-03-31T13:59:27","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T13:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/654492\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T13:59:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T13:59:27","slug":"roki-sasaki-shohei-ohtani-and-yoshinobu-yamamoto-combining-for-mlb-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/654492\/","title":{"rendered":"Roki Sasaki, Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto combining for MLB history"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Dodgers have made significant inroads throughout Japan since signing Shohei Ohtani to what was a record-setting 10-year, $700 million contract<\/a>. <\/p>\n

That same offseason saw them sign Yoshinobu Yamamoto as well, and Roki Sasaki joined his fellow countrymen the next year.<\/p>\n

Yamamoto, Sasaki and Ohtani now are part of the Dodgers’ starting rotation and will combine for MLB history this week.<\/p>\n

Dodgers Japanese pitchers making history<\/p>\n

According to Elias, the Dodgers are becoming the first team in MLB history to start a Japanese-born pitcher in three consecutive games. They are doing so during the same series no less, as it will occur against the Cleveland Guardians.<\/p>\n

Roki Sasaki’s start<\/p>\n

The Dodgers suffered their first loss of the season on Monday night, but received an encouraging outing from Sasaki.<\/p>\n

He allowed just one run over four-plus innings and only walked two batters while collecting four strikeouts. Sasaki had better command of his fastball than was seen throughout Spring Training<\/a>, and he also found success with a still-developing cutter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t get through five innings, but the results overall felt pretty good,\u201d Sasaki said through an interpreter after the game. \u201cI kind of have confidence about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shohei Ohtani’s season debut<\/p>\n

Next for the Dodgers is Ohtani making his first pitching start of the season. Ohtani took the mound in two Spring Training games and despite the relatively limited preparation, manager Dave Roberts is confident<\/a> the right-hander is in strong position.<\/p>\n

Roberts previously suggested Ohtani would be in the conversation for the Cy Young Award this season, which would be a first in his career. Ohtani also would become the first Japanese pitcher in MLB history to ever win a Cy Young.<\/p>\n

Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s schedule<\/p>\n

Yamamoto’s next start is due to take place on five days of rest. He went six innings and allowed two runs agains the Arizona Diamondbacks on Opening Day.<\/p>\n

Yamamoto overcame a high pitch count early in the game to provide the Dodgers with some length. He became their first pitcher to start consecutive Opening Day games since Clayton Kershaw’s streak from 2011-18.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers figure to lean on Yamamoto throughout the first month of the season as Blake Snell is not expected to return until late May in a best-case scenario. Yamamoto mentioned during the spring of wanting to again be durable for the team.<\/p>\n

He made a career-high 30 starts last season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Dodgers have made significant inroads throughout Japan since signing Shohei Ohtani to what was a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2406],"tags":[5,39,1165,4332,4333,774,57,3224,4331,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-654492","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-la","11":"tag-la-dodgers","12":"tag-ladodgers","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","15":"tag-losangeles","16":"tag-losangelesdodgers","17":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116324149910233805","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654492","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=654492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}