Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the rock of the Dodgers rotation

Aug 8, 2026; Phoenix, Arizona, USA; Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto (18) walks off the field after pitching against the Arizona Diamondbacks in the first inning at Chase Field. Mandatory Credit: Anna Carrington-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect Yoshinobu Yamamoto takes t

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Yoshinobu Yamamoto takes the mound on Tuesday night against the Reds in what figures to be his penultimate start of the regular season. It’s been another fantastic year, once again the anchor of the Dodgers rotation, the only member to stay healthy and make every start this season.

Yamamoto enters Tuesday with 172 innings, only five outs shy of his MLB career high set last year. With two starts left, this year figures to settle into his third-most innings in a season, counting his time pitching for

Orix in Japan, with 193 2/3 innings in 2021 and 193 innings in 2022, winning the first two of his three consecutive Eiji Swamura Awards as the best pitcher in Japan.

Unless Justin Wrobleski finds a way to cram 28 2/3 innings into these final 12 games, Yamamoto will once again be the only Dodgers pitcher to qualify for leaderboards, with at least one inning per team game played. Prior to Yamamoto this year and last, no other Dodgers starting pitcher qualified since 2022, when both Julio Urías and Tyler Anderson did so.

Yamamoto this year has the 10th qualifying season by a Dodgers pitcher dating back to 2017, an average of one qualifier per year though going four seasons without (2018, 2020, 2023, 2024) over the last decade. But here’s a fun little quirk: eight of the previous nine Dodgers pitchers to have enough innings to qualify all got Cy Young Award votes in that season.

If we extend this back to 2013, 14 of the last 19 Dodgers pitchers to qualify received Cy Young Award votes, thanks to Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke each faring well in each of their three seasons as teammates (2013-15).

This season, Jacob Milwaukee Brewers ace Misiorowski is a lock for the National League Cy Young Award, and there is stiff competition with Chris Sale, Cristopher Sánchez, Jesús Luzardo, and others all likely to receive votes as well. But there are five spots on each ballot, and 30 ballots for each league, so “receiving votes” shouldn’t be too high of a bar to clear for Yamamoto this year.

In the list above, Kershaw and Walker Buehler each received a lone vote in 2019, for third and fourth place, respectively, for instance.

Yamamoto entering Tuesday leads the majors in averaging 6.62 innings per start, with his 23 starts lasting at least six inning second-most in the majors, as are his 11 starts of at least seven innings. Yamamoto’s four starts of at least eight innings are tied for most in MLB.

Yamamoto is third in the National League in ERA (2.62) and xERA (3.05), sixth in innings (172), 10th in strikeouts (171), and ninth in strikeout-minus-walk rate (20.1 percent). Yamamoto is also tied for fourth in Baseball Reference WAR (5.4) with Sale, and is tied for fifth in the NL in FanGraphs WAR (4.3) with Reds right-hander Chase Burns.