Unleashing the Samurai Ace: Inside Yamamoto's Meteoric Rise in Year Two with Dodgers

“I felt that he wasn’t very convicted with the pitches he was throwing,” Hernández said. “And he just mentioned that he was feeling a little overwhelmed.”

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It was an understandable dilemma. Virtually all rookie pitchers — even those with previous professional experience in Japan — go through such an acclimation period, trying to refine raw talent into tangible results. That learning curve can be particularly steep with a club like the Dodgers, as pitchers have to balance their own personal preferences with the highly detailed game-planning information that goes into the team’s advanced scouting reports.

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