Baseball season is here!
So, welcome back baseball!
The Major League Baseball season is back!
So, here we are again. As you can see, March has been a slow month here. That's had to do with a lot of things, including some personal situations. I've been in the middle of the process of a future trade that we'll likely make to Beehiiv. I was thinking big. And I still am. But it turns out all this has taken me almost a month. I wanted to bring to Beehiiv more than 800 stories that I managed to recover, including articles from my old columns between 2013 and 2017—exactly before I started covering baseball for BaseballdeCuba.com. Of course, we'll talk more about that whole process later, as I've also been working on a couple of projects for the future. There will be plenty of baseball to watch, so I just hope you can be here and enjoy it.
Here's a quick look at that and more. Yes, I know nothing beats the satisfaction of knowing baseball is back. And now, the key question here is who can dethrone the Dodgers. Obviously, the Chicago Cubs aren't part of this equation. But I think they have enough weapons to challenge the Milwaukee Brewers for the NL Central pennant. The Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates could cause some chaos there, although I still don't see them as likely contenders in the division.
By the way, what did you think of the 2025 MLB Tokyo Series, which kicked off last Tuesday with a duel of Japanese aces between Yoshinobu Yamamoto for the Dodgers and Shota Imanaga for the Cubs? It was exciting to see Shohei Ohtani step up to the plate again in front of the incredible Tokyo Dome crowd. I don't know if you knew, but Ohtani came to the batter's box 0-for-5 against Imanaga, including a strikeout.* And then Shota's dominance continued. Ohtani went 0-for-2. He hit a ground ball at just 76 mph in the first inning. Shohei returned in the top of the third inning and hit a 97 mph line drive out to second baseman Jon Berti.
*Seiya Suzuki had a very similar experience against Yamamoto. He entered the game 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. He finished 0-for-6 after hitting a line drive out to the shortstop and a ground ball to third. Seiya, who will be one of the Cubs' key hitters, finished the 2025 MLB Tokyo Series 0-for-8 with four strikeouts.
Imanaga threw 69 pitches in four hitless innings, striking out two and walking four. His command wasn't up to par, but he still tore through the Dodgers' powerful lineup without allowing a run. When Imanaga finished, the Dodgers put together a decisive three-run rally against right-hander Ben Brown in the top of the fifth inning. As the Dodgers' bats blazed, Yamamoto was on his way to completing his 72-pitch, five-inning start, allowing three hits, striking out four, and walking just one batter. After an Ian Happ single leading off the bottom of the third inning, Yamamoto dominated his next nine consecutive opponents, including three strikeouts. He allowed six ground balls and no pop-outs and earned his first win of the 2025 season.
After Miguel Amaya's RBI double in the bottom of the second inning, the Cubs couldn't hit Yamamoto's six-pitch mix—well, in theory, he threw six different pitches, but he frequently combined them with four: a splitter, a four-seam fastball, a curveball, a sinker, a cutter, and a slider. And then, every summary you hear corroborates the devastating impact of Yamamoto's pitches. He threw 29 splitters. His opponents swung at 19 of them. The result? A 49% swing-and-miss ratio. Even though Yamamoto has showcased the high level of all his pitches, the splitter undoubtedly remains his lethal weapon. The average velocity of his four-seam fastball was 96.8 mph. But it turns out Yamamoto threw his splitter at 92.4 mph. Spring, movement, and velocity. A pitch that at first resembles a tsunami and then ends up sinking like a sand castle in the desert. No one can hit that splitter convincingly enough to feel his ego. If you don't believe me, ask the Cubs hitters.
After Yamamoto turned the ball over with a 3-1 lead after recording all three outs in the bottom of the fifth, the game was over. How could that be? Well, not hard to explain: the Dodgers bullpen took over the rest of the way. And the game was over. Dodgers relievers didn't allow a run after the fifth inning in both games of the 2025 MLB Tokyo Series. Cubs hitters hit a baffling 3-for-27 and struck out 11 times. What did we learn? To beat the Dodgers this year, their opponents will have to break down the most unhittable bullpen in the game. But that's not the only reason the Dodgers will be the great Evil Empire for the 2025 season. There are many reasons why they have the best team in baseball, and each one sets them apart from any other franchise. Even without their core regulars available, the Dodgers got the job done. The Cubs' pitching couldn't stop them, at least not enough to win with the poor offense they displayed in Japan.
The Dodgers dominated both games just as they had all of last season. They pulverized a one-hit deficit, scoring a three-run rally in the top of the fourth inning during Game 1. Andy Pages walked, Shohei Ohtani hit a 107 mph rocket to deep right field, and Tommy Edman hit an RBI line drive to the opposite field. I loved those two pieces of hitting. Like most people, I love watching Shohei hit. I imagine Ben Brown must have learned his lesson. Ben's knuckle curve was too dangerous where he pitched: high in the zone and slightly outside the strike zone. Then, Shohei hit with gusto, and the meteorite that came off his bat allowed Pages to reach third.
As I said before, I loved Shohei's piece. I loved Edman's at-bat, not forcing a swing to pull the ball. He did the opposite: he looked for intelligent contact, which opened Pages up at the plate. And if we're talking about all the key at-bats, we have to mention Pages. His walk started the Dodgers' rally. Pages finished 0-for-2 but reached base on two walks. So, as the ninth hitter in the lineup, he successfully fulfilled one of the missions that manager Dave Roberts and the Dodgers needed. Yes, Shohei should get more at-bats with runners on base.
Last year, that trend was different. The numbers might surprise you. After leading the league with a .336 OBP in 2022, the ninth bats used by the Dodgers saw their OBP drop to .277 last year. That substantial breakdown resulted in Shohei coming to the plate with no runners on base in 421 plate appearances, the highest mark of his career. Still, as you know, the Dodgers found a way to win. The Cubs tried to open the scoring against Yamamoto, but the offense didn't work. Nor could they say they hit the talented Roki Sasaki in his long-awaited MLB debut.