Fifteen games in, two things are true — Yamamoto and Edman have been rocks
by Cary Osborne
From the sight of the lines of people waiting outside of Dodger Stadium for his bobblehead — hours before gates opened — to the roar of the crowd inside every time his name was announced, Friday was clearly Freddie Freeman day.
And every time he stepped into the batter’s box, that same crowd wanted so urgently for him to create another magical moment.
Meanwhile, inning by inning, Yoshinobu Yamamoto was collecting outs till the point where it was clear — Friday was his night.
Yamamoto was at 102 pitches in the sixth inning with the game still scoreless. He was facing the Chicago Cubs’ most dangerous hitter Kyle Tucker with a man on first base.
After rubbing the baseball, then stepping back on the mound, Yamamoto stood with his hip facing Tucker. He brought his glove to his chest then threw a rare cutter. Tucker swung and missed. Yamamoto walked to the dugout, eventually getting a hug from manager Dave Roberts.
“Even though the pitch count went high, I was still feeling pretty good and my execution was good,” Yamamoto said of the at-bat.
Then he passed the night onto Tommy Edman, who hit a three-run home run in the bottom of the sixth inning. Edman is now tied for the Major League lead with six homers.
Yamamoto and Edman have been two standouts thus far in the Dodgers’ 15-game season — and both were vital to the Dodgers’ 3–0 win in their return to Dodger Stadium after a difficult road trip that saw them go 2–4.
Yamamoto now has a 1.23 ERA in three starts for the Dodgers. Opponents are hitting .171 against him. The Cubs were 2-for-19 against him on Friday.
They were also 1-for-7 against his splitter with four strikeouts. Opponents are 3-for-30 against the pitch with 16 strikeouts.
Edman, who has done things small — moving runners over on ground balls, giving the Dodgers smart baserunning and defense — has done things very big as well.
With six homers, he is nearly halfway to his career high of 13.
Edman came into the game with increases from his career highs in:
· Hard hit%: up 18.6%
· Average exit velocity: up 3.5 mph
· Average launch angle: up 3.3 degrees
Edman’s homer was off a Matthew Boyd changeup. It was his first homer this year against an offspeed pitch to go with three off fastballs and two off breaking balls.
The company Edman is keeping at the top of the home run leaderboard is Aaron Judge, Kyle Schwarber, Mike Trout and A’s first baseman Tyler Soderstrom.
“It’s a lot of guys that kind of look the same, and then there’s me,” said the 5-foot-9-inch, 190-pound Edman.
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He put four balls in play on Friday — 94.1-mph exit velocity, 103.7 mph, 108.4 mph (the homer) and 93.4 mph. That’s two hard-hit balls and two near-hard-hit balls for an average exit velocity of 99.9 mph for the night.
“They’ve been great,” manager Dave Roberts said of Edman and Yamamoto about the Dodgers’ first 15 games of the year. “Tommy driving in runs where at times we’ve had trouble a little bit scoring runs, where he’ll get a big hit, a big homer with guys on base. And Yamamoto, where in the last week starting pitching has been a little wavery, a little bit — and so to kind of reset our pen off an off day, five more days until another off day, we’re sort of reset right now. And just giving us length every single time out has been huge for us.”
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Freeman went 0-for-3 in his return from the injured list, on a day where he was celebrated in pregame ceremonies and showered with love from Dodger fans every time he stepped in the batter’s box.
The Dodger first baseman, who hadn’t played since March 27 after he slipped in a bathtub and hurt his surgically repaired right ankle, said he had an MRI that showed he had fraying of the scar tissue. However, he said the time off made him feel better than he has felt since he first injured the ankle last Sept. 26.
He is expected to play every game of this homestand.
Fifteen games in, two things are true — Yamamoto and Edman have been rocks was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.