Yoshinobu Yamamoto Gets Absolutely Shelled In His MLB Debut, Lasts One Single Inning

Yoshinobu Yamamoto's highly-anticipated MLB debut with the Los Angeles Dodgers did not go according to plan. In fact, the San Diego Padres made him look like a middling prospect before the Dodgers had to call on their bullpen after Yamamoto finally managed to get three outs.

Any chance of easing into his first-career start was thrown out the window after one singular pitch as Xander Bogaerts ripped a single up the middle. Whether a first-pitch hit got the nerves up or not is unclear, but the Japanese star did not manage to even come close to settling things down on the mound from that point forward.

Yamamoto hit Fernando Tatis Jr. during the next at bat and the flood gates immediately swung open with Jake Croneworth connecting for a triple to make it a 2-0 ballgame. Life comes at you fast as a pitcher in The Show, but not many saw life coming at Yamamoto in about six minutes time like it did early Thursday morning.

When it was all said and done, Yamamoto gave up four hits and five earned runs in his 43-pitch inning.

Not good, not good at all.

Conspiracy theorists and optimistic Dodgers fans will spin Yamamoto getting shelled as some sort of grand plan to take eyes off of Shohei Ohtani The (Alleged) Gambling Man, which is fun, but incredibly doubtful.

He has exactly one inning, and plenty of earned runs, under his belt, but it's worth noting that Yamamoto signed a 12-year, $325 million contract with the Dodgers this offseason. At least he has plenty of time to figure things out, I guess.