Yoshinobu Yamamoto's Major League Baseball debut consisted of a single five-run inning as he took the loss in the Los Angeles Dodgers' 15-11 defeat to the San Diego Padres on Thursday.
The Japanese right-hander had little command against the nine batters he faced in the finale of the two-game series at Seoul's Gocheok Sky Dome. Yamamoto allowed four hits, a hit batsman and a walk, digging a hole even six RBIs from Mookie Betts could not overcome.
Mike Shildt, who called his first managing victory with the Padres an "identity" win after a tough loss in Wednesday's opener, said his guys were looking to exploit mistakes from Yamamoto.
"We were looking for balls up and in the middle of the plate. And the guys had good approaches and good at-bats," Shildt said.
Xander Bogaerts singled off Yamamoto's first pitch, Jake Cronenworth slammed a high hanging splitter for a two-run no-out triple. A walk, a sacrifice fly by South Korea's Kim Ha Seong, and a pair of two-out, run-scoring hits made it 5-0 before Yamamoto escaped the inning on 43 pitches with his second strikeout.
"I didn't have my command. I had trouble pitching with stability from the set position, and I'm going to review that with my pitching coach, move on to preparing for my next start and put this one behind me," Yamamoto said.
Shohei Ohtani, the pre-game focus of attention after his interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, was fired for allegedly stealing at least $4.5 million from him to cover gambling losses, went 1-for-5 with a sacrifice fly and repeatedly hammered the ball to the warning track.
Left-handed reliever Yuki Matsui, who made his MLB debut the night before, finished the seventh for the Padres. He retired Ohtani on a first-pitch fly to the wall and allowed two singles and an inherited runner to score in two-thirds of an inning.
"I was entirely focused on locating my pitches and not thinking that much about it being Shohei," Matsui said. "It's a good thing I got an out there, but I'm still throwing fat fastballs."
The Dodgers scored a run in each of their first two innings, and both teams put up four-run thirds to make it 9-6.
Betts hit a two-run home run in the fifth and singled in two more runs in the eighth to trim the Padres' lead to 12-11, but Manny Machado extended the lead again with a three-run homer in the ninth.
Padres reliever Robert Suarez, who led Japan's Central League with 42 saves in 2021, retired Ohtani to end the eighth and struck out two in the ninth to record the save and send San Diego home with a win.
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