Yoshinobu Yamamoto

Yamamoto only allowed two hits that scored runs, which is usually good. Two of those were homers, which is less good. One of those homers was a grand slam, which is bad. The 26-year-old has been shaky over his last two starts, but still owns a glowing 1.80 ERA. These things happen. Yamamoto should bounce back Wednesday at home against the Athletics.

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.