PHOENIX — The first pitch of the Dodgers’ 2026 season won’t capture the exuberance of the last pitch of 2025. But it will be meaningful in its own right, as the official first step of the team’s quest for a third straight championship.
How poetic that the same arm should deliver both pitches.
“It’s an honor for me,” Dodgers opening day starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto said Tuesday through interpreter Yoshihiro Sonoda. “And then it’s opening day at a Dodger Stadium home game, and that’s very [much an] honor to me. I also feel the responsibility.”
Yamamoto is scheduled to make one more Cactus League start, against the Padres on Friday, before taking the Dodger Stadium mound next Thursday when the Diamondbacks come to town. It will be the second opening-day start of Yamamoto’s MLB career, and his first at home.
It will also mark the end of a whirlwind offseason and spring training for Yamamoto, who not only shouldered a demanding postseason workload, but also navigated an especially quick turnaround to pitch for Team Japan in the World Baseball Classic.
“It’s hard to put into words,” manager Dave Roberts said. “He is just very driven, he’s very disciplined in his work. That’s some of the things that allows him to compete at a high level. Where most people would feel that you win the World Series MVP, you don’t have enough to pitch in the WBC. He wanted to pitch for his country, and now he’s really excited about the start of 2026.
“He is a very determined person. He really is. We’re just lucky he’s on our team.”
No one needs to be reminded that Yamamoto was a playoff hero last year, but let’s really break down his efforts.
On Oct. 14, Yamamoto made his third start of the postseason and threw a complete game against the Brewers to put the Dodgers ahead 2-0 in the NL Championship Series.
Eleven days later, he tossed another nine innings to help the Dodgers even the series against the Blue Jays. And he wrapped up the World Series with appearances on back-to-back days, starting Game 6 and finishing Game 7.
Yamamoto threw 526 pitches in the postseason, 235 in the World Series alone, and he still touched nearly 97 mph in his final inning of work.
Most pitchers would need at least a full offseason to recover. When Blake Snell slow-played his offseason because of lingering shoulder discomfort after the World Series run, the decision made all the sense in the world.
Yamamoto, however, was already pitching in meaningful games by March 6.
In Yamamoto’s first start of the WBC, he held Chinese Taipei hitless for 2 ⅔ innings. Then in the quarterfinal game against Venezuela last Saturday, he surrendered a leadoff homer to Ronald Acuña Jr. and a second-inning RBI double to Gleyber Torres before settling in for two scoreless innings. The eventual 8-5 loss eliminated Team Japan from the WBC.
“As Team Japan, the result was not what we were aiming for,” Yamamoto said. “But at a personal level, my condition was good.”
The season will be the true test for Yamamoto’s training methods, which have been infamous since before his transition from Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, and are already spreading across the Dodgers’ clubhouse. Look no further than shortstop Mookie Betts this week lauding the effects of throwing a javelin.
If they continue to work, Yamamoto could be in the running for the Cy Young Award, after finishing third in National League voting last year.
“There’s high competition, there are a lot of great pitchers out there,” Yamamoto said, “but I hope that I get there.”
Yamamoto’s offseason work, however, wasn’t simply geared toward getting to opening day or winning an individual award. He knows as well as anyone that this team has set a high bar with back-to-back championships.
“The same goal,” Yamamoto said of 2026, “winning a world championship with this team.”
Now over four months removed from that final pitch of the 2025 World Series, one lesson has stuck with Yamamoto.
“I learned how difficult [it is] to get one win,” he said. “As a team, I want to be able to share that joy.”
