Yoshinobu Yamamoto entered his sixth start of the 2026 season with a 2-2 record, still waiting for the kind of support that can turn a strong outing into an easy win. The Dodgers were back at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday, where they lost 3-2 to the Miami Marlins in another game that stayed tight from the first pitch to the last.
Yamamoto last faced the Giants at Oracle Park and took the loss even after covering seven innings of three-run ball. The Dodgers offense went 0 for 5 with runners in scoring position in that outing, and the pattern around him had already started to look familiar: in the early part of 2026, the club had failed to score more than two runs in the majority of his starts.
That mattered again as the Dodgers came into the Miami series with a.828 OPS, a number that suggested a productive lineup but did not always show up in the games that belonged to Yamamoto. The difference between the overall power in the order and the scoring in his starts has been a recurring split, one that echoed what happened in 2025, when he did not get much run support at all.
Miami brought its own pressure point. The Dodgers were set to face Chris Paddack, who had lost all four of his starts in 2026 and had allowed 31 hits in 24 innings of work. Even with that edge on paper, the game still ended 3-2, a reminder that a club can carry the better numbers into a matchup and still leave with a loss if the offense does not cash in when it has the chance.
There is some real depth behind the Dodgers’ overall start, too. Tyler Glasnow, Justin Wrobleski, Emmet Sheehan and Shohei Ohtani combined for an 11-0 record, which has helped stabilize the rotation around Yamamoto. But the right-hander’s own results have continued to tell a different story, and until the Dodgers turn more of those close starts into a little breathing room, his outings will keep feeling like tests of how much one pitcher can hold together on his own.
