LOS ANGELES — Hey now, you’re an All-Star – keep pitching like one.
One of five Dodgers named to the National League All-Star team Saturday, Yoshinobu Yamamoto showed why against the San Diego Padres, holding them scoreless for seven innings as the Dodgers hung a third consecutive defeat on the fading Padres, 3-0.
“All my stuff was good – fastball, offspeed, everything was working out really well,” Yamamoto said through his interpreter. “And also my mechanics, I was pretty much satisfied.”
All the run support Yamamoto received came from fellow All-Stars. Andy Pages drove in one run with an RBI single in the third inning. Freddie Freeman provided the others with a solo home run in the sixth and an RBI single off Mason Miller in the eighth.
Since a rough outing against the San Francisco Giants in mid-May (five runs allowed in 6⅓ innings), Yamamoto has hit cruise control. In eight starts since then, he has a 1.48 ERA (just nine earned runs allowed in 54⅔ innings), including one or none allowed in six of the eight starts. Opposing batters are hitting .163 with 52 strikeouts in that time and he has gone at least seven innings in five of the starts.
“He’s been great his whole Dodger career, his whole Japanese career. He’s just a great pitcher. He really is,” Freeman said of Yamamoto’s latest run of excellence. “When you have that kind of velocity on your heater, the splitter is at 93, 94 (mph) and you can put the ball wherever you want in a strike zone, it doesn’t matter how hard you throw it, if you hit spots, hitters can’t hit it. He’s a special pitcher.”
He took a minute to settle into Saturday’s dominant groove. He gave up two hits in the first inning, stranded runners at the corners with a strikeout of Ty France, then gave up a leadoff single to Xander Bogaerts in the second inning.
Bogaerts was doubled off when Jackson Merrill hit a line drive to Freeman for an unassisted double play. Yamamoto put it into another gear after that. The Padres had to savor the memory of Bogaerts’ second-inning hit – they didn’t have another one in Yamamoto’s seven innings.
Yamamoto retired 17 of the final 19 batters he faced, walking a pair along the way. He tied a season-high with 10 strikeouts, getting 16 swings-and-misses from his full arsenal – six each on his fastball and splitter, two on his slider and one each on his curveball and sinker.
“When he’s on a roll, it’s just hard to put together innings, get hits,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “He’s just a tactician out there when he’s right. The fastball is located where he wants it, both sides of the plate. Elevates when he needs to, like he did against (Jake) Cronenworth. And then the split is just out of that same window as that fastball, so it’s virtually unhittable when he’s right.”
The Dodgers’ offense showed just enough life to support Yamamoto.
The Padres went with left-hander Wandy Peralta as an opener Saturday. He walked Freeman with two outs and gave up a double to Mookie Betts. Third-base coach Dino Ebel sent Freeman, but he was out at home on a relay from center fielder Jackson Merrill to shortstop Bogaerts and home.
Griffin Canning took over in the second inning and walked Dalton Rushing to start the third. He went to second on Alex Freeland’s bloop single, then third on a wild pitch. Pages drove him in with a single to left.
Canning settled in and retired eight out of nine after that. But Padres manager Craig Stammen pulled him after the fifth inning, going with lefty reliever Kyle Hart. He fell behind the first batter he faced, Freeman, 2-and-0, then rolled a sweeper over the middle of the plate. Freeman sent it 388 feet into the right-field pavilion to give Yamamoto at least a little cushion.
“I just got a 2-0 sweeper in the heart of the plate and put a good swing on it,” Freeman said. “I failed in my previous at-bat (flying out to the warning track with two runners on), so I wanted to make up for it.”
Playing the Padres for the sixth time in the past nine days, the Dodgers faced their flamethrowing closer, Miller, for the first time Saturday night. They got to him for a run when he hit Tommy Edman with a pitch. Edman moved up on a ground out, then scored on Freeman’s single through the middle.
Brock Stewart, Alex Vesia and Will Klein combined on the final two innings, closing out a four-hit shutout.