Dodgers vs. Cubs MLB Tokyo Series 2025 Best Bet: Japanese Pitchers Duel in Japan

The Dodgers’ Starter 

Yoshinobu Yamamoto is starting for the Dodgers in this regular season opener.

Yamamoto’s one MLB season took place last year where he gradually proved to be an excellent pitcher.

His start to the season was very rough, but his ERA was 2.53 after his disastrous season-opener.

He finished his rookie season with a very good 3.00 ERA and an even more impressive 2.61 FIP (like ERA but factors out fielding).

Will He Start Poorly Again?

Skeptics will say this: yes, Yamamoto was good later into last season, but we’re in March right now. Can we expect him to be as good at this early stage in the season as he was in later stages last season?

The key to answering this question is that Yamamoto’s rough start to his season was foreseeable in Spring Training.

In Spring Training last year, his command was poor. He struggled a lot in other ways, as well. His Spring Training ERA was an atrocious 8.38, and he had four walks in 9.2 innings.

One can be confident that Yamamoto will have a strong start to this season because he has shown in Spring Training this year that he is a vastly improved pitcher relative to what he was at this stage of the season last year.

Specifically, his Spring Training ERA and walk rate are drastically better this year than they were last year. 

He is not having to undergo the changes in his mechanics that stressed him so mightily last year, making it difficult for him to find comfort on the mound. He is able to be comfortable now, and this is so important to him as a pitcher who relies heavily on his command.

Matchup Details

Yamamoto relies especially on a fastball, split finger, and curveball.

These pitches, last year, combined to make up close to 90 percent of his repertoire.

He matches up well against a Cubs team that ranked below average in slugging against these pitches from righties.

When he faced the Cubs last year, he made use of his matchup advantage to limit them to zero earned runs in two starts that totaled nine innings. They could hardly touch his stuff, as evident in their very high strikeout rate in both games.

If a few new players create improvement in Chicago’s lineup, that will be undone by the injury-induced absence of Nico Hoerner. The starting second baseman is not traveling with the team to Tokyo.

Who Is Starting For Chicago?

Like the Dodgers, Chicago is starting someone who is coming off an excellent rookie season.

For the Cubs last year, Shota Imanaga achieved a 2.91 ERA. His 3.72 FIP doesn’t look great, but it really just reflects the starkly negative emphasis that this metric places on home runs — even when the home runs are solo shots. 

Imanaga’s Track Record Against Los Angeles

Imanaga was arguably at his best at the beginning of the season.

He shut out his first three opponents, including the Dodgers.

Relevantly to this season opener, he pitched against the Dodgers twice and thrived both times.

In total, he allowed a combined total of three earned runs in eleven innings, with all three of those runs coming in Dodger Stadium where he did pick up the win.

Imanaga’s Command and Pitch Selection

Last year, he showed that he had strong command, as evident in his low walk rate. Especially his splitter garnered a lot of strikeouts.

His splitter is able to be so effective in large part because, as part of the adjustments to pitching in the MLB that he underwent last year, he finally learned to elevate his fastballs in the uppermost region of the strike zone.

In doing so, he created a change of eye level for batters who had to adjust to his low splitter after they had dealt with his high fastball.

One batter who won’t be trying to hit his stuff is former MVP selection Mookie Betts. Betts has been ruled ‘out’ with an illness.

Takeaway

Matchup details and game history indicate that both starting pitchers have a strong outlook for this game.

I am already disinclined to do a full-game wager because one can’t know which relievers will enter a given game. They create additional variables — and thus additional uncertainty — that one can avoid navigating by sticking to a first five bet.

A first five bet is all the more worthwhile in this earliest stage of the season. Both starters threw 75 pitches in their last tune-up. One can’t expect them to go for much more than five innings. 

Rather than deal with four innings of random relievers, I’d rather just trust both starters.

MLB Pick: First Five Under 3.5 (+120) at Bovada (visit our Bovada Review)

First Five Under 3.5 (+120)

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