LOS ANGELES, CA — Latino Sports was on the grounds of Uniqlo Field at Dodger Stadium, the home of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Wednesday night for the first time of the 2026 MLB regular season. The organization recently announced an agreement with Uniqlo, a Japan-based apparel retailer, to become the official sponsor name of the ballpark.
Anyways, on the field Wednesday for the three-game series finale was the back-to-back World Series Champion, beginning the year with a record of 4-1, facing the 3-3 Cleveland Guardians. Los Angeles sent out 2025 World Series MVP, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Cleveland countered with 26-year-old right-hander Gavin Williams.
Gavin Williams silenced the Dodgers lineup Wednesday, allowing two hits and three walks across seven shutout innings with ten strikeouts- Image Credit: Al Pereira/Latino Sports
After a twenty-minute two-inning start, Cleveland got on the board first in the third inning with a lead-off double by Daniel Schneemann, who then stole third base and scored on a throwing error to third by Will Smith. The next batter, Gabriel Arias (La Victoria, Venezuela) then sent a 79-MPH curveball 407-feet, over the center field wall for a home run, giving the Guardians a 2-0 lead.
In the meantime, Williams was cruising through the Dodger lineup, recording ten strikeouts and allowing only two hits over seven innings, while throwing 85 pitches, 55 for strikes. He was assisted up the middle by an acrobatic Brayan Rocchio (Caracas, Venezuela) who took a base hit away from Freddie Freedman.
On the other side, Yamamoto, tossing 87 pitches, 52 for strikes, left with a line of six innings pitched, four hits, two runs, one walk, and two strikeouts.
The Dodger bullpen would give up a few more runs in the eighth inning when José Ramírez (Bani, Dominican Republic), a finalist for the 2025 American League LatinoMVP Award, parked a 376-foot two-run home run into the left field seats.
Los Angeles would finally put a run on the board when the left-handed hitting Freeman connected for a 407-foot solo home run over the wall in dead center field in the bottom of the ninth inning.
Except for two bad pitches in the third inning, Yamamoto pitched well enough to win. His only problem was that this powerful Dodger lineup could not figure out Williams, who was lights out.
“Going six innings on just 87 pitches was huge, especially after last night,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts of Yamamoto’s Wednesday outing. “We needed length. He attacked the zone, and his splitter was the best it’s been all season.”
In his second outing of 2026, Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched six innings with two strikeouts and surrendered two runs on four hits (one HR) and one walk – Image Credit: Emma Sharon/Latino Sports
The Dodgers now head to the East Coast for three games with the Nationals in Washington, D.C., followed by three games in Toronto with the Blue Jays—an early Fall Classic rematch between the two 2025 World Series opponents.
On the state of the team this early in the year, coming out of Spring Training into the regular season less than a week ago, Roberts said:
“We’re 4-2 so that’s a good thing. Obviously it’s a very talented lineup but right now, it just seems like a lot of guys are in between. You still gotta give credit to the guys making pitches, but I think that we’ll get our groove.”
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