Tommy Edman’s wife Kristen follows up Blake Snell moment with playful shoutout to Yoshinobu Yamamoto & Shohei Ohtani

The Los Angeles Dodgers are heading to the National League Division Series for a second consecutive season after beating the Cincinnati Reds in successive Wild Card games.

The defending World Series winners rode on a strong start from ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto to claim an 8-4 win on Wednesday. Yamamoto pitched seven strong innings despite allowing two earned runs in the opening frame.

Fellow Dodgers ace Blake Snell, who pitched the Dodgers to a 10-5 win on Tuesday by going seven innings of two-run ball with nine strikeouts, gave a playful shoutout to the Japanese pitcher.

"You nasty," Snell captioned his story with a graphic of Yamamoto's stats.

Dodgers infielder Tommy Edman's wife, Kristen, also shared her appreciation for the Japanese pitcher, who threw a career-high 113 pitches in Game 2 of the wild-card series, in her Instagram story on Wednesday.

Yamamoto did run into trouble in the sixth inning after the Reds hit three singles from TJ Friedl, Spencer Steer and Dodger Gavin Lux to load the bases with no outs. However, the Dodgers starter came out unscathed and received a standing ovation from the crowd of 50,465.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto's dominance gives confidence to Dodgers manager Dave Roberts

Yoshinobu Yamamoto is the only Dodgers starting pitcher to not miss a strategy this season, leading the team with 173 2/3 innings with a 2.49 ERA across 30 starts.

His performance on Wednesday elevated Dodgers manager Dave Roberts' confidence in them to go all the way to defend their title.

"I think we can win it all. I think we're equipped to do that," Roberts said. "We certainly have the pedigree. We certainly have the hunger. We're playing great baseball. And in all honesty, I don't care who we play. I just want to be the last team standing."

With the Dodgers sweeping the Reds after consecutive wins, the NL West team will have Shohei Ohtani on the mound for the division series opener against the Philadelphia Phillies

About the author

Chaitanya Prakash is an editor who covers US Sports at Sportskeeda. His first brush with sportswriting was in 2012 when the greatest football manager of all time, Sir Alex Ferguson, bid farewell to the beautiful game.

Although having started out professionally as a cricket writer in 2022, Chaitanya's curiosity and indiscriminate interest in all sports in general eventually introduced him to America's favorite pastime.

While Chaitanya's favorite player from the current crop is the dynamic Venezuelan Ronald Acuna Jr., his all-time favorite, however, is Pedro Martinez, for his self-belief and consistency. He also rates Jose Bautista's iconic bat flip in 2015 as his favorite moment in baseball history.

Chaitanya specializes in reporting on technical aspects of the game or analyzing patterns behind specific plays. He also likes pondering over players' self-assessments following the conclusion of a game as it helps him get an idea of how they think about the sport in general.

When not cheering for his favorites across sports, Chaitanya likes being transported to the past through a good war documentary or a historical documentary in general.

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Edited by Chaitanya Prakash