Yoshinobu Yamamoto can win the National League Cy Young Award.

The possibility of Yamamoto doing that has felt increasingly real every time he has stepped on the mound this season, reaching the point in the Dodgers’ 3-0 victory over the Chicago Cubs on Friday night to where the previously-reticent right-hander readily embraced it.

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“I’ve heard no Japanese pitcher has won it yet, so I’m awfully interested in it,” Yamamoto said in Japanese. “I think that concentrating on each and every game and performing at my best is what will lead to a wonderful award like that, so I’d like to do my best every day.”

The statement was a reflection of how much has changed for the 26-year-old Yamamoto over the last year.

The apprehension he exhibited in his first major league season has been replaced by assertiveness, leading to him terrorizing hitters of whom he used to be overly respectful.

He pitched six scoreless innings against the Cubs to improve his record to 2-1 and lower his earned-run average to 1.23.

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Yamamoto completely overwhelmed the Cubs, not giving up a hit until the fourth inning and not issuing a walk until the sixth. He struck out nine batters, giving him 37 punchouts in 28 innings for the season.

As reluctant as manager Dave Roberts was to compare Yamamoto to another Japanese pitcher, he said Yamamoto reminded him of Hideo Nomo because of his reliance on his fastball and splitter.

Read more: Tommy Edman continues to reveal his inner slugger in Dodgers’ win over Cubs

“You have hitters guessing,” Roberts said. “It’s just a split that’s a strike, then it’s a ball that’s a swing and miss or a strikeout there. There’s a good fastball that’s commanded and that’s a lot like Hideo. He doesn’t have the tornado delivery, but it’s a lot like that.”

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The start against the Cubs was noteworthy in how comfortable Yamamoto was on the mound. He looked almost as if he was toying with them.

“I think I was able to control my fastball really well and I was able to throw my breaking balls in a good zone, which allowed me to pitch in good counts,” he said. “I think that gave me a lot of options.”

Even when Kyle Tucker advanced to third base in the fourth inning, Yamamoto looked as if he was in control of the situation. Even when Michael Busch worked the count full in that inning, Yamamoto looked as if he was in control.

And he was.

Yamamoto struck out Busch with a splitter for the third out of the inning. The pitch was in the strike zone, meaning that Busch would have still struck out if he had kept the bat on his shoulder.

Yamamoto’s control is so precise, Fuji Television reporter Yu Suzuki said in Japanese, “He has the luxury of throwing a strike with a 3-2 count.”

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Suzuki would know.

A former pitcher for the Orix Buffaloes, the 28-year-old Suzuki was Yamamoto’s teammate for five seasons.

From Suzuki’s vantage point, Yamamoto is “starting to look like the Yoshinobu who pitched in Japan.” Throughout Yamamoto’s injury-plagued rookie season with the Dodgers, Suzuki insisted this would happen.

Suzuki has observed Yamamoto’s greater comfort in the major leagues, noticing how Yamamoto has started changing the intervals between pitches and the speed of his delivery. Suzuki pointed to how Yamamoto is also throwing a wider variety of pitches, which has given him a greater number of ways he can attack hitters.

“This year, he’s mixing in his cutter or two-seamer more,” Suzuki said. “Take tonight. He got a strikeout with a 95-mph two-seamer. When he mixes in a pitch like that, it makes it harder for hitters to sit on particular pitches.”

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The ability to throw any pitch in any count is what made Yamamoto a three-time most valuable player in Japan. His showdown against Busch in the fourth inning was one of three at-bats in which the hitter worked the count full. He struck out the batter in each of them.

Yamamoto will continue to improve, Suzuki said.

Mentioning how Yamamoto threw 103 pitches in the six innings he pitched against the Cubs, Suzuki said, “In Japan, he used to pitch eight or nine innings like this, except he would do it in 110 pitches. I still think the pitch count is a little high by Yoshinobu’s standards. The real Yoshinobu can throw this many pitches and get through eight or nine innings.”

That wouldn’t just make him a candidate for the Cy Young Award. That would make him a lock.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Tommy Edman has never hit more than 13 home runs in any of his six previous MLB seasons.

After just 15 games this year, he’s almost halfway there.

With an easy swing on a knee-high changeup in the sixth inning Friday night, Edman ended what had been a pitcher’s duel between Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Chicago Cubs left-hander Matthew Boyd. He turned a blank scoreline into a three-run Dodgers lead. And, in perhaps the most unexpected twist of the team’s blistering start to this season, Edman joined a five-way tie for the majors’ early lead in home runs, belting his sixth to lift the Dodgers to a 3-0 win at Dodger Stadium.

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Read more: Dodgers’ Andy Pages trying to avoid sophomore slump and cement lineup spot

Home runs, of course, are not why the Dodgers long coveted Edman early in his career with the St. Louis Cardinals. Power is not one of the primary traits they thought they were acquiring when the 29-year-old arrived in a three-way trade at the deadline last summer.

His positional versatility, switch-hitting abilities, and Gold Glove-caliber defense across the diamond are what club executives treasured most. Plays like the one he made in the top of the sixth inning Friday, when he sprinted some 50 feet from a shifted position behind second base to reach a ground ball in the hole and make a spinning throw from the shallow outfield grass to first, are what they envisioned.

But moments later, on a night the Dodgers had struggled to apply any pressure to Boyd, Edman flipped the script.

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After Teoscar Hernández singled, and Freddie Freeman (who was returning from the injured list after what he described as a hugely beneficial 10-day rest for his ailing right ankle) was hit by a pitch, Edman jumped on a 1-and-0 changeup and brought a crowd of 53,933 to its feet.

Suddenly, MLB’s early-season home run leaderboard reads like this…

T-1st: Mike Trout (who is closing in on 400 career home runs)

T-1st: Aaron Judge (the three-time American League home run king)

T-1st: Kyle Schwarber (the 2022 National League home run king)

T-1st: Tyler Soderstrom (a power-hitting Athletics prospect)

And, T-1st: Edman (who hit a grand total of four home runs in his entire college career)

The Dodgers (11-4) were also backed up by superb pitching in their first shutout of the season, one keyed by a nearly flawless six-inning effort from Yamamoto.

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The right-hander was perfect through his first three innings. He stranded a runner at third in the fourth, after giving up his only two hits of the game. He racked up nine strikeouts with a lethal combination of splitters, curveballs and precisely located mid-90s mph fastballs.

Yamamoto’s lone walk of the outing came to his penultimate batter, missing with a full-count curveball to Ian Happ with two outs in the top of the sixth. But in another full-count to star Cubs slugger Kyle Tucker in the next at-bat, Yamamoto snapped off a swing-and-miss cutter, getting a standing ovation from the Chavez Ravine crowd, and a long hug from manager Dave Roberts back in the dugout, after lowering his ERA to 1.23 through four starts this season (fourth-best in the NL so far).

Boyd, a veteran left-hander who entered the night without a run allowed in his first two starts of the year for the Cubs (9-7), wasn’t so lucky in the bottom half of the inning.

Hernández battled back from an 0-and-2 count to poke a full-count changeup to center for a single.

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Freeman — who said before the game that the right ankle he had surgically repaired this offseason, then re-aggravated earlier this month by slipping in the shower, was “the best [it has] felt” since he originally sprained it late last season — then took a wide sinker off the side of his hip.

That brought up Edman, the undersized 5-foot-9 utilityman who began showing signs of a power surge last season by hitting six home runs in 37 games following his trade to the Dodgers; earning the nickname “Tommy Tanks.”

In less than half that time this year, he’s already matched that total, sending Friday’s blast halfway up the left-field pavilion.

And now, a player who had never before topped 13 long balls in a season is on pace for more than 60.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Clayton Kershaw will take his first official step toward joining the Los Angeles Dodgers next week, though there will still be a long wait before can suit up for the MLB team.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters Friday that Kershaw will start a rehab assignment next Wednesday, more than a month before the team is allowed to activate him to its active roster on May 17.

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Kershaw re-signed with the Dodgers on a one-year, $7.5 million contract last offseason and was placed on the 60-day injured list in spring training, as expected. The three-time Cy Young Award winner underwent surgeries on his left foot and knee after the 2024 season, leaving his 2025 return timetable hazy.

Minor league rehab assignments are only allowed to go for 30 days with pitchers before teams are forced to either add them to the 26-man roster or withdraw them. If Kershaw’s rehab assignment starts April 16, that would line up well with him coming back right around his eligibility date.

Kershaw made only two starts last season due to shoulder surgery rehab and the knee and toe injuries that required surgery, but he was still able to celebrate a World Series title with his teammates. He joined the Dodgers this season as a luxury, as the team already had one of the stacked rotations even with a considerable amount of players still making their way back from injury.

Tony Gonsolin, returning from Tommy John surgery, will make a rehab start a day before Kershaw on Tuesday and Shohei Ohtani’s Dodgers debut as a pitcher is still looming, with an even hazier timetable than Kershaw’s. The Dodgers are also now without another left-handed Cy Young winner in Blake Snell, causing them to elevate Landon Knack to the big-league rotation.

For now, the Dodgers rotation is Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, Roki Sasaki, Dustin May and Knack. Gonsolin would theoretically bump Knack when he comes back, though you can really never be sure how things will work out with this team.

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Kyren Paris’ shift to Aaron Judge’s hitting coach seems to be paying off. Jordan Shusterman and Jake Mintz break down how Paris has been a key to the Los Angeles Angels’ surprisingly hot start.

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Are you a believer? That’s what the guys try to decide as they break down whose breakout starts to the season are for real and whose aren’t in a new segment.

Plus, Jung Hoo Lee has two fan sections in San Francisco, a game with 22 walks and the Cody Bellinger vs. the chicken wings saga continues in this week’s rendition of The Good, The Bad & The Uggla. All of this, this weekend’s previews and more. Come join us for this Friday Baseball Bar-B-Cast.

(1:32) – Kyren Paris and the Angels fast start

(22:19) – Am I a believer? Whose hot starts are the real deal?

(53:58) – The Good, The Bad & The Uggla

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(1:14:24) – Weekend Preview

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What a morning it was on Wednesday for Harvard-Westlake coaches, players and fans. If they had access to the Internet or a television, they wanted to see what happened in the Major League Baseball game between the New York Yankees and Detroit Tigers because the starting pitching matchup had Max Fried taking on Jack Flaherty.

Andy Pages shook his head with a grin, raised his clasped hands to the sky, then gave thanks with a much-needed sigh of relief.

It didn’t matter that the Dodgers were getting blown out Tuesday night. Or that his fifth-inning home run did little to halt the team’s unexpected skid on this week’s road trip.

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For one moment, one at-bat, the second-year slugger finally experienced a moment of reassurance, hitting a two-strike slider beyond the reach of two leaping Washington Nationals outfielders for his first home run of the season.

“It was definitely a sense of relief,” Pages said in Spanish through a team interpreter after the game. “Just like a big, major breath of fresh air, for sure.”

Read more: Dodgers snap three-game losing streak behind early burst, seventh-inning rally

Up to that point, the season had begun ominously for the 24-year-old center fielder. He was four for 35 at the plate. He had made several mental mistakes on defense and the basepaths. And he’d grown increasingly burdened by the precariousness of his situation, inching ever closer to a James Outman-esque trajectory of regressing from a productive rookie season to a disheartening sophomore campaign.

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Pages didn’t show those simmering emotions as he left the batter’s box. He kept his head down and face straight as he trotted around the bases.

But back in the dugout, the former highly touted prospect finally let himself feel some satisfaction. For weeks, pressure had been building. This was a sudden release.

“It gave me a lot more confidence,” Pages reiterated. “To get some results … was a major lift off my back.”

Despite batting .248 with 13 home runs and 46 RBIs last season — a promising if inconsistent rookie performance punctuated by a two-home-run, four-RBI performance in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series — Pages knew he’d have few certainties this year.

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From the beginning of spring training, he said, “the team told me that I didn’t have a guaranteed spot, that I had to work my way to get a big-league spot.”

Although Pages broke camp as the primary center fielder, his early struggles had been weighing on him.

“That’s added a little bit of stress to my day-to-day,” he acknowledged. “I feel good. It’s just some of the things that I’ve been working through haven’t worked out.”

Blunders in the outfield (where he has misplayed several fly balls, including a rocket from Philadelphia Phillies star Bryce Harper last weekend) and on the bases (where he has run through stop signs and been caught twice on overaggressive baserunning decisions) were the most glaring moments of failure over the first two weeks.

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“Some plays that I just need to make,” Pages said, “I haven’t made them.”

At the root of his frustrations, however, has been his inability to consistently produce at the plate — where, even after collecting four hits and two home runs in his last three games, he is batting just .171 with a .648 on-base-plus-slugging percentage.

After all, the main reason Pages is on the roster over other options such as utility man Hyeseong Kim (the slick-fielding offseason signing from South Korea who opened the year in the minors to work on revamping his swing) and outfielder Esteury Ruiz (the 2023 American League stolen base leader acquired from the Athletics last week) is his bat.

Thus, even over an exceedingly small sample size entering this week’s series in Washington, his lagging numbers had become cause for concern.

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“I’m trying to do the things that I can do every day, to work hard, to get better at the plate, making adjustments,” Pages said Monday, when manager Dave Roberts kept him out of the lineup to let him reset mentally.

Read more: Without Blake Snell, Dodgers’ highly touted pitching depth falters in loss to Nationals

“I’ve been doing a lot of good things,” Pages insisted. “But balls aren’t falling.”

To Roberts, Pages’ slump had less to do with swing mechanics and more with “passivity” in his offensive approach.

An aggressive hitter ordinarily, Pages seemed too cautious in the box. Batting near the bottom of the lineup — often in the No. 9 hole with Shohei Ohtani behind him in the leadoff spot — Pages started taking more pitches than usual and shortening his swing to go the other way.

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It has helped him walk more, Pages drawing free passes at double the rate he did last year. But the pop in his bat had gone missing. Routine fly outs to right field were an overly common occurrence.

“Just to be a little bit more aggressive, shifting the field a little bit more towards the center, the big part of the field, I think would be more beneficial,” Roberts said.

Tuesday’s home run, hit on an arching line to the left-center-field bullpen, served as a long-awaited first example. Another came Wednesday afternoon, in two starkly contrasting midgame at-bats.

In the fourth inning of the series finale against the Nationals, Pages took three consecutive thigh-high, center-cut sinkers from right-hander Jake Irvin, kicking himself after striking out looking with Ohtani on deck.

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“I’m not used to hitting in that part of the order, and I’m trying to see as many pitches as I can,” Pages said, concurring with Roberts’ assessment of his overly conservative approach. “Sometimes I get too passive for that reason, which isn’t good for me.”

Thus, his next time up in the seventh, Pages swung at three straight sliders from reliever Eduardo Salazar. The first two he whiffed on. But the third, which was left up in the zone and out over the plate, Pages launched to the left-field seats for a tying blast — his second home run in a 24-hour span.

“I just tell him to go aggressive,” said veteran teammate Teoscar Hernández, who has become a close mentor of Pages since early last season. “He’s an aggressive hitter. So just get ready to hit.”

Roberts agreed, noting Pages is still “calibrating” the right balance of patience and aggression.

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“He needs to kind of figure out where his strengths are in the hitting zone,” Roberts added, “and if he sees it there, then just be as aggressive as you need to be.”

Read more: After ‘honor’ of White House visit, Shohei Ohtani picking up where he left off in 2024

It’s all part of the continuing education of Pages; the kind of growing pains the Dodgers are willing to tolerate, for now, in hopes he can blossom into a more consistent offensive force as an everyday player.

There are still defensive fundamentals to drill home and baserunning mistakes to eliminate. There are still alternatives down the depth chart too, if Pages can’t turn this two-homer outburst into a more prolonged period of success.

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But, “for him to start getting results is good,” said another veteran teammate, Kiké Hernández. “I know what it is to be young and struggling in the big leagues. There’s people behind you trying to take your job. I know how that feels. But once you start getting a little more calm and loose — that’s what it seems like with his at-bats right now. He’s starting to get in a rhythm.”

Teoscar Hernández added, with a wide smile after Pages’ home run Wednesday helped lead a come-from-behind win: “He’s gonna hit. He’s a good hitter. He’s gonna be fine. And he’s gonna help us a lot this year too.”

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.