TEMPE, Ariz. — The season ahead will be demanding, perhaps themost demanding of Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s career.
The World Baseball Classic next month. Another six-month MLB regular season. And if theDodgers reach the heights they expect to reach,another three or four postseason series.
All of this after a playoff run in which Yamamoto pitched complete games in consecutive starts and threw the final 2 ⅔ innings of Game 7 of the World Series a day after starting Game 6.
As Yamamoto fielded questions on Saturday aboutthe 1 ⅔ innings he pitched against the Angelsin the Dodgers’ Cactus League opener, a slender figure in a sweatsuit was on the other side of the visiting clubhouse of Tempe Diablo Stadium explaining why the right-hander would remain healthy over the next eight months.
“There isn’t a person without worries,” Osamu Yada said in Japanese. “But I think we’re at a point now where we have slightly more peace of mind than concerns.”
Yada has trained Yamamoto since he was a teenager on the Orix Buffaloes of the Japanese league, transforming him from a novice who required 10 days between pitching appearances to a workhorse capable of pitching on consecutive days. He has never instructed Yamamoto to lift weights, instead prescribing an unorthodox workout routine that includes handstands, back bridges and javelin throws.
However backbreakingthe upcoming seasonmight be, Yada said, Yamamoto’s winter was even more tiring. Yamamoto worked out under Yada’s watch six times a week, six hours at a time.
“In December, January,” Yada said, “he pushes himself to the point of complete exhaustion.”
The training program isn’t designed so that Yamamoto can take his turn in the rotation every six or seven days. The regimen is structured so that Yamamoto can peak in the second half of the season.
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Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
