Steve Webb
ARLINGTON, CA — In a game defined by elite pitching, it was a single swing from Tommy Edman that made all the difference. Edman’s solo home run off Jacob deGrom in the first inning gave the Dodgers an early lead they would never relinquish, helping secure a 3–0 win over the Rangers in Arlington. It was Edman’s first career at-bat against the two-time Cy Young winner, and he didn’t miss. “That was the first time I faced him,” Edman said postgame. “You know, he’s been one of the nastiest pitchers in the game for a while, so I was excited for the challenge.” The pitch? “Just a high fastball,” Edman shrugged. “Yeah, I just hit a high fastball.”
While Edman’s bat provided the margin of victory, he was just as quick to credit Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who threw seven shutout innings in a commanding performance. “He’s been a man on a mission,” Edman said. “He’s pretty much unstoppable… it’s fun playing behind him. You pretty much know what you’re going to get every time.” Against a stacked Rangers lineup, Yamamoto’s execution stood out. “His execution’s just been unreal all year,” Edman said. “He has so many ways to get ahead of hitters… he can dump in a curveball, he can just dot a fastball away. Just so many ways to get back in the count, and once he’s up in the count, he’s got a lot of pitches to put ’em away. He has something for every situation and he’s been executing all of them.”
Asked about Yamamoto going toe-to-toe with deGrom, Edman didn’t hesitate. “For sure,” he said. “He (Yamamoto) is one of the best pitchers in our game right now. I can’t really imagine anybody being better than him right now.”
Offensively, Edman is off to a hot start in 2025, already surpassing last season’s home run total in just a few weeks. “It feels good to have some success early on,” he said. “It just felt good to have a full offseason where I could work on some things and get my swing to a spot where I wanted it to be.” With a reporter joking that he’s now on pace for 50 home runs and maybe 50 steals, Edman laughed. “Fifty stolen bases? Well, I got thrown out today, so I gotta work on stealing a few bases first,” he said. “I’m not really thinking about numbers. I’m just trying to win baseball games.”
If Edman keeps swinging like this and Yamamoto keeps dealing, the Dodgers might win a lot of them.
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