CHICAGO —
In his first taste of the major leagues, Yoshinobu Yamamoto crumbled.
But on Saturday at Wrigley Field, staring down the barrel of a couple of early bases-loaded jams, the young star Japanese pitcher cooly, calmly and confidently refused to cave in.
Since signing his record-breaking $325 million contract this offseason — the largest in MLB history for a pitcher not named Shohei Ohtani — Yamamoto’s transition to the big leagues has been anything but seamless.
Pitch-tipping concerns first raised by his new teammates led to an early glove-positioning adjustment in his delivery. The slicker, untacked balls used in Major League Baseball — unlike the pre-tacked balls Yamamoto used in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball league — affected his typically devastating splitter command.