Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Hyeseong Kim have the unique experience of being star baseball players overseas, and both leaped into the unknown to try and continue that success with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Yamamoto had a microscopic 1.82 ERA across seven seasons in Nippon Professional Baseball with a 4.48 strikeout-to-walk ratio over nearly 900 innings of work. Kim won four Gold Glove awards in Korea Baseball Organization while becoming the first to ever do so at shortstop and second base.
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Yamamoto was born in Japan, and Kim in South Korea, but the Dodgers ace revealed to the Los Angeles Times’ Dylan Hernandez that the language barrier hasn’t stopped the two from creating a distinctive bond.
“We speak to each other in broken English,” Yamamoto said. “I really like Korean food, so he teaches me about that. There are differences between Korean and Japanese baseball, and the major leagues are a little different too, so stuff like that. They aren’t deep conversations, but I think it’s important to communicate, so we talk a lot.”
The differences in the three leagues were evident upon their respective entrances to the Dodgers.
Yamamoto mustered just one inning in his MLB debut last season (taking place in Seoul, South Korea), allowing five earned runs in the process. Kim had to spend a little over a month in Triple-A Oklahoma City after early struggles in spring training this year.
With Yamamoto’s 2.59 ERA this season and Kim’s .342/.380/.465 slashline through 49 games, it’s safe to say that the duo has been doing just fine in MLB.
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Photo Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images
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