-
Alden Gonzalez
Samurai Japan has set its roster for the upcoming World Baseball Classic and announced that Los Angeles Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto will be included.
Yamamoto will be among eight major leaguers who will suit up for the defending champions of the prestigious international baseball tournament, joining teammate Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Angels starter Yusei Kikuchi, Chicago Cubs outfielder Seiya Suzuki, San Diego Padres reliever Yuki Matsui, Chicago White Sox first baseman Munetaka Murakami, Toronto Blue Jays infielder Kazuma Okamoto and free agent right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano.
Yamamoto was among the headliners in a star-studded Japanese rotation in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, joining Ohtani, Shota Imanaga, Yu Darvish and Roki Sasaki, who has since also signed with the Dodgers and will not take part in this year’s tournament. But there was a lot of uncertainty about whether Yamamoto would join this year’s tournament given his workload last season.
Yamamoto made 30 regular-season starts for the Dodgers in 2025, posting a 2.49 ERA in 173⅔ innings while finishing third in National League Cy Young Award voting. He then added another 37⅓ in the Dodgers’ march to a second straight championship, famously pitching six innings of one-run ball in Game 6 of the World Series before coming back to record the final eight outs the following night.
The World Baseball Classic begins with pool play on March 4 and concludes with the championship game from LoanDepot Park in Miami on March 17. Team Japan, which also won the World Baseball Classic in 2006 and 2009, will open training camp in the Japanese city of Miyazaki on Feb. 14. Japan has just one open spot on its roster.
