Dave Roberts Says Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto May Have Been Tipping Pitches During First Playoff Game

During the Los Angeles Dodgers Game 1 win over the rival San Diego Padres, one of the bigger storylines came from starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto struggling early on. He allowed three runs in the first inning and never quite got settled into any rhythm.

After the game, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts weighed in on the poor start from Yamamoto. Within, he seemed to hint that the rookie may have been tipping some pitches during the game.

“There’s some things that I think we’re going to dig into because I think at second base they had some things with his glove and giving away some pitches,” Roberts said, echoing an issue that came up this spring. “We’re going to clean that up. That’s part of baseball. So it’s on us to kind of clean that up and not give away what pitch he’s going to throw.”

This was an issue that came up earlier in the season but the Dodgers believed that Yamamoto was past it. However, on one of the biggest stages of his early career, the problems seemed to come back and the Padres took advantage early on.

Los Angeles will need to figure out how to deal with this issue and fast. Yamamoto is going to be a key piece to any success that they may have in the postseason and he could make another start against San Diego if the series goes the distance.

Luckily for the Dodgers, the offense was able to overcome the struggles. Superstar Shohei Ohtani hit a three-run home run to tie the game early before the lead grew to be too large.

“I mean, you could almost feel it in the stadium,” Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said. “Then thankfully we have a guy whose name is Shohei Ohtani and he injected an absolute lightning bolt into the stadium. From then on it was, ‘Alright, we’ve got this. This is not the same as years past. We’re good.’”

The Dodgers feel good about their Game 1 win but they know this series is far from over. Just two years ago, Los Angeles won Game 1 against the Padres, only to lose the next three and be eliminated.

They will need to take things one game at a time and just play their game. This is a confident group and it showed when they took a punch early.

Next up will be trying to take a 2-0 lead over San Diego and they will have right-hander Jack Flaherty on the mound to start in the crucial game.

Photo Credit: Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images

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