LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto have been friends going back to their days playing in Japan’s top baseball league. Now they’re about to make their Major League Baseball playoff debuts together for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
They teamed to win a gold medal for Japan in last year’s World Baseball Classic.
Their next goal? Win a World Series championship together.
“The experience back in Japan, Japan Series and the World Baseball Classic, other big games will definitely help,” Yamamoto said Friday through an interpreter. “And I’d like to utilize it.”
Yamamoto will start on the mound Saturday for the top-seeded Dodgers in Game 1 of their best-of-five National League Division Series against Dylan Cease and the rival San Diego Padres, who are seeded fourth. The Dodgers outlasted the Padres to win the NL West Division title for the 11th time in 12 years over the closing days of the regular season after San Diego took eight of 12 games from the Dodgers.