Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s injury has Dodgers fans fearing the worst

Almost everything has been going to plan for the Los Angeles Dodgers this season. After a flurry of high profile moves last offseason, the Dodgers find themselves with a healthy lead in the NL West and a +98 run differential and we are only in the middle of June. In even better news, most of the Dodgers' moves have turned out great as Tyler Glasnow has been one of the better pitchers in the league in 2024 and Shohei Ohtani has looked as good as advertised if not better after signing the richest contract in MLB history. The only thing that has held LA back at all is injuries.

Unfortunately, the injury bug reared it's ugly head once again on Saturday and it involved one of their bigger signings in Yoshinobu Yamamoto. After adding Yamamoto on a massive deal worth $325 million, Yamamoto was off to a tremendous start in MLB with a 2.92 ERA in his first 14 starts in the big leagues while striking out better than a batter an inning. However, the Dodgers raised some red flags when Yamamoto's start this week was pushed back a couple days even with the team just the move "extra rest".

However, things took a turn for the worse in Yamamoto's start against the Royals as not only was Yamamoto forced to leave after two inning with triceps tightness, but Dave Roberts indicated after the game that it is a "high possibility" that Yamamoto will be headed to the injured list.

Dodgers News: Yoshinobu Yamamoto likely headed for the injured list with triceps injury

We got a lot more details about the timeline of events that brought Yamamoto to this point. After throwing seven shutout innings against the Yankees, Yamamoto's triceps was bothering him which is why his start was pushed back in the first place. However, his arm had improved during the week and only started bothering him again during warm-ups on Saturday and got worse as he tried to pitch through it, so the Dodgers pulled him.

To say that the timing of Yamamoto's injury is brutal is an understatement. LA's rotation was finally starting to get healthy with Bobby Miller likely to get activated this coming week and the promising news that Clayton Kershaw is ahead of schedule in his rehab from shoulder surgery. Now, Yamamoto is likely to be out for a while and the Dodgers still don't know if Walker Buehler will turn back into the guy he was before having Tommy John and flexor tendon repair surgery.

If any team has the depth and resources to weather the loss of an arm like Yamamoto, it is the Dodgers. That said, that doesn't mean it is going to be easy.

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