Straight Talk: Yamamoto points to mental toughness in going 7 strong after rough 1st inning

“Straight Talk" is a regular feature in which The Sporting Tribune’s John E. Gibson offers a full translation of media availability with Dodgers Japanese stars Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki. He will also help translate when Lakers star Rui Hachimura and LA Galaxy captain Maya Yoshida are asked questions in Japanese. 

Q: Yoshi, when you look at how you started the first inning, obviously some of the traffic – probably not the best results you wanted in that first inning. How do you find just bouncing back to then to have a very clean and effective outing to get through seven innings of work?

Yamamoto: Well, the first inning – I wasn’t able to hold them to a minimum number of runs, and that made for a frustrating start to the game. But I was just able to go after one batter at a time and – yeah, that start of course was bad, but the positive is that I was able to go seven innings after that.

Q: What did you find that you needed to execute just after that? When you look at your stuff, what did he find to then make an adjustment or change, and how did he just do that in such a quick time between the first and second?

Yamamoto: I didn’t really change a lot in particular. Even in the first inning, I would say there weren’t that many clean hits, and the movement on my pitches was the way it usually is. So, I just went out to work each inning at a time.

Q: Yoshinobu, after the first inning happens and it’s clearly not the way you wanted it to go, how do you change your mentality to be so effective the rest of the game?

Yamamoto: Well, it (that first inning) was enough frustration to last beyond that inning, but because I focused on getting one out after the next, I got into a rhythm and it was just some first-inning runs, so I think it’s good that I could reset and go on from there.