After seeing what could’ve been his greatest start of the season interrupted over a weather delay last week in Coors Field, Yoshinobu Yamamoto will once again take the mound against one of the worst teams in baseball, this time at home versus the White Sox.
Yamamoto, who ended the month of May with a 6-3 record, had been dealing with more inconsistencies and a lack of run support in June, all of which led the Dodgers to be on the losing end of four consecutive starts from him, including one in which he pitched six scoreless. The win in Colorado was Yamamoto’s first in a month.
Yamamoto enters Tuesday with 89⅔ innings on the season, one out shy of the 90 he threw last regular season. Add in his 18⅔ innings from the postseason and four more in Triple-A on a rehab start, and Yamamoto pitched 112⅔ innings last year, after averaging 186 innings over his final three seasons in Japan.
With expectations towards Clayton Kershaw’s potential 3,000 strikeout coming on Wednesday, Dodger fans will get to watch this team’s current ace on Tuesday as a preface.
Assessing this current opponent, the White Sox aren’t having as bad a season as the Rockies, but they’ve had a particularly difficult time on the road, currently with a 9-32 record away from Chicago.
That being said, one of the few bright spots of this current White Sox team will be on the mound squaring off against Yamamoto. A Rule 5 Draft selection from the Milwaukee Brewers system, Shane Smith was thrust onto the Opening Day rotation with no MLB experience and has thrived in his rookie campaign.
The twenty-five-year-old rookie currently has a 3.32 ERA across 15 starts, the best mark on the team for anyone who has started at least 10 times. Those numbers looked a whole lot better only a couple of weeks ago as Smith is coming off two clunkers, allowing a combined 10 runs against the St. Louis Cardinals and Arizona Diamondbacks. Smith’s attempts to get back on track will come against an offense that, after scoring 17 runs in the first two games of a road trip, only got 18 in the following four. Worth noting, there was a significant move from Coors Field to Kauffman Stadium.
Tuesday game info
- Teams: Dodgers vs. White Sox
- Stadium: Dodger Stadium
- Start time: 7:10 p.m. PT
- TV: SportsNet LA, MLB Network (out of market)
- Radio: AM 570 (English), KTNQ 1020 AM (Spanish)