Yoshinobu Yamamoto's struggles are being masked by Shohei Ohtani's Dodgers dominance

Even though the Dodgers have been struggling across the board over the last week, the slumping offense is getting the most attention. It is weird when guys like Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Will Smith, and Teoscar Hernández are struggling to generate power. It's weird when Hernández drops all the way down to eighth in the lineup and Ohtani is going through homer droughts.

But it's also distracted from an equally worrisome facet of the Dodgers' recent slide: the starting pitching hasn't been great.

Except for, of course, Ohtani. He brought his ERA even further below 1.00 with seven scoreless against the Giants on Wednesday. He still has yet to give up more than two runs in a start or pitch fewer than six innings.

But Tyler Glasnow is on the IL. Blake Snell gave up five runs in his return from the IL and was pulled after three innings, then went back onto the IL. Justin Wrobleski finally showed cracks and gave up seven runs even though he lasted 8 2/3 against the Braves. Emmet Sheehan has been battling velocity issues all year. Roki Sasaki is ... well, you know.

And Yoshinobu Yamamoto has given up anywhere between 3-5 runs in his last four starts.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto and the Dodgers' rotation have been a quiet weakness for LA

Yamamoto has a 5.18 ERA in his last four starts. He's given up four homers and is averaging four runs allowed per game. He's been having a bit of trouble his first time through orders, with a .221 average and .647 slugging against, to a .188 average and .614 OPS the second time through.

It's not exactly the version of Yamamoto fans expected to see after his heroics in the postseason last year, the one that looked almost guaranteed to give Paul Skenes a run for his money in the NL Cy Young race.

National outlets are already heralding Ohtani as the Cy Young frontrunner. Ultimately, it'll all depend on if he can pitch enough innings not just to qualify but to look as impressive as full-time pitchers who are more likely to hit 170, even 180+ innings in a season. But right now, he looks like the much better pitcher than his teammate.

No one is overly concerned about Yamamoto right now. After all, we've seen what he's capable of. If he does anything like it again this October, he might go down as one of the greatest postseason performers in baseball. But if he continues to struggle during the regular season, we could be having a more difficult conversation.

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