TORONTO – When Yoshinobu Yamamoto heard Shohei Ohtani call him the world's No. 1 pitcher after the Dodgers won the World Series last year, he felt honored.
He was also unconvinced.
"I've never felt like that at all," Yamamoto said in Japanese.
He's still not where he wants to be.
Yamamoto is open about his dreams of earning the designation that was prematurely bestowed on him by Ohtani, but reaching his ultimate goal will first require him to clear some short-term objectives.
In the wake of his most recent start, next up would be the end of the seventh inning.
If his World Series heroics against the Toronto Blue Jays at Rogers Centre marked a graduation into stardom for Yamamoto, his return to the site of his greatest career achievement was more of a progress report.
For five innings of the Dodgers' 4-1 victory over the Blue Jays on Tuesday night, he showed how close he was to being the best at what he did. The last one-plus represented the distance that will have to be covered for him to reach his destination.
Yamamoto pitched into the seventh inning for the first time this season, only to leave the game with no outs and runners on the corners. If he can figure out how to finish that inning in his next start, and do it again, and again, and again, by the time the regular season ends, he thinks he can reach the 200-inning mark.
"I think that focusing on each and every start will lead to me arriving at that number," he said.
Hitting that target would move him closer to the Cy Young Award he wants to win, which, in turn, will move him closer to his mission to be recognized as the best pitcher in baseball.
Step by step.
This is how Yamamoto thinks.
This is how he works.
In his most recent step, he was charged with one run over six-plus innings to improve his record to 2-1 while lowering his earned-run average to 2.50.
Yamamoto was virtually unhittable through five innings, the only hit he allowed up to that point a catchable second-inning line drive by Jesus Sanchez that was lost by right fielder Kyle Tucker and ended up a double.
"He was commanding everything," manager Dave Roberts said.
If not for Tucker getting turned around on Sanchez's double, Yamamoto would have triggered a no-hit watch, but then again, he's looked as if he's had no-hit stuff in the early innings of each of his three starts.
Former beat writers of the Orix Buffaloes said this was what Yamamoto's starts were like in the Japanese league. History felt within reach in every game Yamamoto was on the mound, and he pitched two no-hitters.
Yamamoto is now doing this against superior competition, and he's doing this while pitching with greater frequency. Pitching on six-days' rest at this time last year, Yamamoto has taken his turns in the rotation with one fewer day between starts.
And he's not only pitching more frequently, he's also pitching deeper into games. In his first three starts, Yamamoto has logged 18 innings. He was at 16 innings through his first three starts last season. He finished the 2025 regular season with 173 ⅔ innings in 30 starts, which came out to a little less than six innings a start. Two-thirds of an inning over three games might not seem like much, but that extra outs add up over the entirety of a season.
Yamamoto figures to get stronger as the season progresses, as that was what his offseason training program was designed for him to do.
Yamamoto's longtime trainer, Osamu Yada, explained in spring training that Yamamoto pushed himself to the point of complete exhaustion over the winter. In December and January, Yamamoto worked out under Yada's watch six hours a day, six days a week. They have maintained a similar routine since Yamamoto was a teenager, and Yada said this was why Yamamoto sometimes has trouble in the early months of a season.
By Yada's estimation, Yamamoto will start peaking around the end of the summer. He will be taking the next step in his journey.
