Braves, MLB fans troll Dodgers after Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s debut goes horribly wrong

For Los Angeles Dodgers fans who woke up at 3 a.m. on the west coast to watch Yoshinobu Yamamoto's first start with the team, it sure looks like a poorly-spent $325 million.

Of course, one start doesn't begin to tell the story of Yamamoto's Dodgers career. The 25-year-old struggled throughout spring training, with an 8.38 ERA in three starts. Yamamoto and the Dodgers chalked that up to pitch tipping, but what occurred early Thursday morning was far more concerning.

In just one inning pitched against the Padres, Yamamoto gave up five earned runs on four hits and threw 43 pitches to get three outs. He'll need to be far better moving forward.

What went wrong for Yoshinobu Yamamoto in first Dodgers start?

In hopes of avoiding obvious pitch-tipping, the Dodgers had Yamamoto throw from the stretch almost exclusively. As outlined by Pitching Ninja, Yamamoto did disguise his pitches better, though it didn't make much of a difference.

Before we overreact to one career start -- which baseball fans are prone to do -- there are several factors that could have impact Yamamoto in Seoul. First, this is a notoriously early start for the MLB regular season. Opening Day isn't set to start until late March, yet the Dodgers and Padres played two regular-season games a week prior for...reasons.

Also, as noted above, Yamamoto is throwing from the stretch to avoid tipping his pitches. While he succeeded, the Dodgers pitching coaches also messed with his more traditional windup, which he's been using for years. There's bound to be an adjustment period. Add in the pressure of throwing closer to home and on a new $325 million contract, and it's easy to see how one mistake could lead to another, and another.

Braves, MLB fans weren't patient with Yoshinobu Yamamoto

The Dodgers are the villains of the 2024 MLB season after spending over $1 billion on free agents this past winter. Los Angeles deferred most of the money in Shohei Ohtani's contract, as well, which should aid them in adding more talent in the future. The Dodgers built a superteam around Ohtani and Yamamoto, so watching the latter fail this early in the season is surprising and invigorating for some.

Yes, the memes and tweets are worth a look.