ATLANTA — No one show him a calendar.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto was voted the National League’s Pitcher of the Month for the first month of the season, during which he led the majors with a 1.06 ERA. Yamamoto didn’t acknowledge the passage of time on Friday, pitching like the National League’s best against the Atlanta Braves.
Yamamoto took a no-hitter into the sixth inning and allowed just one hit in six scoreless innings as the Dodgers beat the Braves, 2-1, in the opener of a weekend series at Truist Park, extending their winning streak to six games.
Through 5⅔ innings, Yamamoto walked two but didn’t even allow a ball to be hit out of the infield until the fourth inning. Austin Riley finally broke up his no-hit bid with a line drive into right-center field with two outs in the sixth, hustling it into a double.
Yamamoto struck out six and was really in danger only twice – real danger.
Matt Olson lined a ball back through the box at 107.7 mph in the first inning, ruffling Yamamoto’s hair on the way past. In the second inning, Yamamoto snagged Sean Murphy’s 106.4 mph drive back at him out of self-preservation.
Yamamoto’s splitter continues to emerge as an elite pitch for him. He threw 27 Friday. The Braves swung at 16, missed six and didn’t put any of them in play at more than 81 mph.
Matched up with Jacob deGrom and Paul Skenes in his previous two starts, Yamamoto was dueling with a less-accomplished right-hander Friday – Braves starter Grant Holmes.
The Dodgers’ first-round draft pick in 2014, Holmes was shipped to Oakland in the Rich Hill-Josh Reddick trade two years later but was released by the A’s in July 2022. He surfaced with the Braves last year and was clinging to a rotation spot with a 4.50 ERA before Friday night.
But he looked dominant in the early innings, retiring the first 10 Dodgers in order, six on strikeouts (on his way to a career-high nine in six innings).
Mookie Betts broke the perfect string when he a 94.4 mph line drive back at Holmes in the fourth inning. The ball caromed off the back of Holmes’ leg for a hit. Freddie Freeman beat out another infield single and Teoscar Hernandez walked to load the bases. Will Smith drove in the first run of the night with a sacrifice fly.
Betts doubled the score anyway with a solo home run in the sixth inning. It was his seventh RBI in the past three games and eighth hit in his past 21 at-bats.
Yamamoto left after six innings and 91 pitches, his MLB-leading ERA now down to 0.90. Kirby Yates replaced him and Olson drove his third pitch over the wall in straightaway center field, making it a one-run game again.
Tanner Scott and Evan Phillips made that stand up with one scoreless inning apiece, split by a 73-minute rain delay between the eighth and ninth innings.
More to come on this story.
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