Yamamoto struck out out 8 and has three of the four 7-inning starts by Dodgers pitchers this season. Ohtani is the fastest to 30 home runs in franchise history.
Shohei Ohtani was already voted to the National League All-Star team, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto has a good chance to join him once rosters for the midsummer classic are announced on Sunday. Both figured prominently in the Dodgers’ 6-1 win over the White Sox on Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium.
Yamamoto allowed only three hits and a walk in his seven innings, with eight strikeouts. Two of those hits came in the fourth inning to plate Chicago’s only run against him.
After the run, on an RBI double by Lenyn Sosa, Yamamoto retired his final 10 batters faced, matching his longest outing of the season. Yamamoto has pitched seven innings three times this season. The rest of the team has only one such outing, by the starter scheduled for Wednesday night.
Yamamoto is third among National League pitchers with a 2.51 ERA and ranks fifth with a 28.6-percent strikeout rate.
And for a change in the series opener against a White Sox team on pace for its third consecutive season with triple-digit losses, Yamamoto pitched with a comfortable lead for nearly his entire outing.
After scoring only nine first-inning runs during all of June, the Dodgers plated four runs in their first inning of July. All of it came after two outs in the frame, with walks by Will Smith and Max Muncy cashed in on consecutive hits by Teoscar Hernández, Andy Pages, and Michael Conforto.
Pages added another RBI single in the third inning, continuing to bolster his All-Star credentials.
The six runs the Dodgers scored with Yamamoto in the game matched his best run support of the season, along with a May 26 win over the Guardians in Cleveland. Tuesday’s bounty upped the seasonal total to 31 runs of support in 18 starts while Yamamoto was in the game.
The sixth run came in the bottom of the fourth inning, when Ohtani deposited a Shane Smith slider into the right field pavilion for his 30th home run of the year.
No. 30 for No. 17! pic.twitter.com/hjQji5CH6I
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) July 2, 2025
Ohtani is the first National League player with 30 home runs this season and the third major league hitter to do so, joining Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh and Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge.
Tuesday was the Dodgers’ 86th game of the season, making Ohtani the fastest in franchise history to 30 home runs, one game ahead of Duke Snider for Brooklyn in 1955 and two games before Gary Sheffield for Los Angeles in 2000.
Last season, when Ohtani set a Dodgers record with 54 home runs on the season, he hit his 30th home run in the team’s 100th game of the year, on July 21.
Ohtani now has five straight seasons of at least 30 home runs. His 208 home runs since the start of the 2021 season are second-most in the majors, trailing only Judge (226).
The Dodgers are 20-7 in games in which Ohtani homers this season.
Tuesday particulars
Home run: Shohei Ohtani (30)
WP — Yoshinobu Yamamoto (8-6): 7 IP, 3 hits, 1 run, 1 walk, 8 strikeouts
LP — Shane Smith (3-6): 4⅔ IP, 6 hits, 6 runs, 3 walks, 6 strikeouts
Up next
Clayton Kershaw is just three strikeouts away from 3,000 in his career, and he’ll get a chance to pass that milestone on Wednesday night (7:10 p.m.; SportsNet LA, MLB Network). Right-hander Sean Burke starts on the mound for Chicago.