For the first time in his career, Yoshinobu Yamamoto might be heading for a lengthy injury list appearance. The 25-year-old was abruptly pulled back from the Los Angeles Dodgers game against the Kansas City Royals after feeling the tightness in his triceps. Though he had been sore since last week, yesterday it became a bit too unbearable. Now the Dodgers skipper has come out to explain the entire situation in detail.

It was clear that something was wrong from the first pitch that Yoshinobu Yamamoto threw. The star wasn’t as explosive as he normally was. His four-seamer was always 1.4 mph slower and so were his other pitches. However, as the game progressed, Yamamoto slowly realized that his soreness was increasing. By the end of the second inning, he knew that his game was up and said as much to the coaches.

During his postgame conference, Dave Roberts revealed that he was “surprised” by Yamamoto’s issue. The star has had unreal durability till now, so it was a surprising development. However, he also clarified that they knew about Yamamoto’s sourness for the whole week. “As far as soreness, he felt sore couple days after that (Yankees) start,” Roberts said.

“He said, there was some soreness, we pushed him back pushed Tyler back and he said he felt good enough to go. Obviously he felt, we felt, he can make the start. We wouldn’t pitch him if we felt he was going to put himself in harm’s way,” Roberts clarified.

Entering this game, Yamamoto was coming off his season-high 106 pitches against the New York Yankees. The ace had thrown 19 of his hardest pitches in that game (all ranging between 97-98 mph). Just like Dave Roberts, Yoshinobu Yamamoto too felt a little surprised. After the game, the Dodgers star revealed that he felt a little tightness before the game.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto, looking at a potential IL presence 

“I was feeling it a couple days ago, but today, that tightness was gone,” Yoshinobu Yamamoto said per MLB.com. “And during the game, my triceps tightened up.” Then the star went to reveal an interesting detail. Yamamoto said that he felt a little tightness during his warm-up and notified the coaches about it. But because of his confidence, Yamamoto decided to push through the discomfort.

Though Yamamoto is currently going day-to-day, Dave Roberts didn’t deny the chances of the issues being major. The full information will be known only after the Los Angeles Dodgers $325 million pitcher undergoes various tests. However, there was one encouraging comment from Yamamoto. “I think I will do a little more examination, but the actual feeling I’m having is not that bad,” he said. The Dodgers will certainly hope the diagnosis is not that bad either. Their pitching staff is already understaffed and losing Yamamoto for the long term could be catastrophic.