Yoshinobu Yamamoto to Face Hitters, Is He On Track to Start Dodgers’ Regular Season Opener?

Yoshinobu Yamamoto is set to face hitters at Dodgers camp for the first time on Saturday, Feb. 17. Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic reported the news on Thursday.

While Dodgers manager Dave Roberts isn’t going to name his starters for the Seoul Series in Korea anytime soon, the Dodgers do need to start planning this early in the offseason to get their pitchers on track for the early start.

So, with Yamamoto set to face live hitters on Saturday, and with the report that he’s expected to start one of the two games in Korea, we wanted to break down the schedule and see whether he’d be on track to start the Dodgers’ regular season opener on March 20.

Yamamoto is used to pitching once a week in Japan, so the Dodgers may elect to start him on that schedule and work him into a more normal schedule come the regular season.

So, if the Dodgers wanted to start him on six-days rest, and then move him to five-days rest, his schedule could look like this:

Feb. 17: Face live hitters

Feb. 24: Pitch in Cactus League game vs. Angels

March 2: Pitch in Cactus League game vs. Brewers or Cubs (split squad)

*Switch to five-days rest*

March 8: Pitch in Cactus League game vs. Reds

March 14: Face live hitters

March 20: Start Dodgers regular season opener vs. Padres

This, of course, is just one of the ways the Dodgers could go about getting Yamamoto ready for the early start to the season. This would be the most consistent way to schedule his rest, so he’s not pitching on irregular rest come March 20 or 21 in Korea.

With Walker Buehler set to miss the beginning of the season, it makes most sense for Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow to start the first two games of the season in Korea. And the planning to get them on track to start those two games starts in spring training.

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