{"id":659123,"date":"2026-04-02T16:37:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T16:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/659123\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T16:37:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T16:37:14","slug":"dodgers-news-first-mlb-team-to-start-3-straight-japanese-pitchers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/659123\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers news: First MLB team to start 3 straight Japanese pitchers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">In total, the trio against Cleveland allowed three runs in 16 innings, with 12 strikeouts and six walks. The Dodgers became the first team in Major League Baseball history to start a Japanese pitcher in three consecutive games, per Elias.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cThese are three great men. They are all different. This is a special time in Major League Baseball, certainly with the Japanese players we\u2019re fortunate to have, and around the league,\u201d manager Dave Roberts said Wednesday. \u201cIt\u2019s an honor to know that I managed these three guys.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">This is the second year all three have been Dodgers teammates, but the timing never worked out in 2025 for all three to be in the rotation at the same time. Ohtani was rehabbing from his second Tommy John surgery and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.truebluela.com\/2025\/6\/25\/24455620\/shohei-ohtani-dodgers-pitching-plan\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">didn\u2019t get into a game until mid-June<\/a>. Sasaki went on the injured list in April and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.truebluela.com\/dodgers-roster\/104508\/dodgers-roster-roki-sasaki-kirby-yates\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">didn\u2019t return until September<\/a>, and by then there was only room for him in the bullpen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Fourteen Japanese players were on opening day rosters this season, matching 2010 for second-most in a season, behind only the 16 Japanese players on 2008 opening day rosters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Having three Japanese starting pitchers on the same team in any season is rare enough, as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/bio\/Japan_born.shtml\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">only 35 pitchers born in Japan have started a game in MLB<\/a>. Yamamoto, Ohtani, and Sasaki are only the third such trio in major league history, joining the 2001 Montreal Expos (11 starts by Masato Yoshii, 10 by Tomo Ohka, and three from Hideki Irabu) and 2003 Dodgers (33 from Hideo Nomo, 27 by Kazuhisa Ishii, and two by Masao Kida).<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Yamamoto, Ohtani, and Sasaki combined for 52 starts last season, tied for second-most in a season by Japanese pitchers on one team.<\/p>\n<p>Most starts by Japanese pitchers on one MLB team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In total, the trio against Cleveland allowed three runs in 16 innings, with 12 strikeouts and six walks.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2406],"tags":[5,39,40445,1165,4332,4333,774,57,3224,4331,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-659123","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-history-records","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\/116336095768851240","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659123","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=659123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}