Kenta Maeda of the Los Angeles Dodgers one upped Clayton Kershaw and Scott Kazmir in his first start for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Maeda matched Kershaw and Kazmir shutout inning for shutout inning but he also hit a solo homerun in his second career at bat. He pitched six shutout innings, scattered five hits, struck out four, and did not issue a walk. He only threw 84 pitches, 57 of those were strikes.
Maeda may be the key to the Dodgers championship hopes this season. Maeda is slight of build weighing in at slightly over 150 pounds and he carries a large part of the burden for the Dodgers in replacing Zack Greinke. The scouting report given by former major league pitcher and Fox analyst C.J. Nitkowski on Foxsports.com on 1 January 2016 says that Maeda has a five pitch arsenal with his two best pitches being a fastball with his out pitch being a slider. He also throws a two seam fastball and an occasional curve and changeup. He will also have to adjust to pitching every five days rather than once a week like he did in Japan. It will be interesting to see how he will hold up to the grind of a 162 game major league season.
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