Yoshinobu Yamamoto

It feels like Yamamoto just keeps getting better. Even during the few moments of stress when the Rangers strung a hit or two together he was calm, cool, collected, and made the pitches he needed to get out of it. While the strength of his repertoire was on display – each of his fastball, splitter, curveball, and slider forced at least three swings-and-misses – his splitter was especially devastating. Working as his primary pitch, it forced seven whiffs and had the Rangers lunging at it all game. Using a primary splitter can be treacherous since it’s not a pitch that’s thrown in the strike zone very often. Yamamoto’s was in the zone less than 30% of the time in this game and it was so lethal that the Rangers could not lay off. He now has a 0.93 ERA through five starts and should be thought of as one of the few best pitchers in baseball at the moment. He’s scheduled to face the Pirates in his next start.

The 26-year-old right-hander racked up five strikeouts on the night while issuing three free passes. The lone tally against him came on a throwing error that Yamamoto made himself in the opening inning, but the Dodgers weren’t able to scratch out a single run of support for him in this one. Yamamoto got 12 swings and misses on 97 pitches in the ballgame, posting a CSW of 28 percent. He’ll carry a pristine 1.69 ERA, 1.06 WHIP and a 19/6 K/BB ratio into Wednesday’s tilt against the Nationals in Washington.