The Los Angeles Dodgers gave Yoshinobu Yamamoto $325 million without him ever throwing a pitch in MLB. On Wednesday, Yamamoto got his first chance to show Dodgers fans why, and his stuff did not disappoint.

The right-hander faced the defending World Series champion Texas Rangers in his spring training debut and held them scoreless in two innings with three strikeouts and one hit allowed, facing the minimum. The Rangers won the matchup 6-4.

Yamamoto dominated in Japan with an arsenal featuring a four-seam fastball thrown 48% of the time, a splitter at 26%, a curveball at 16% and a slider and cutter to round out the arsenal, via Sports Info Solutions.

Those three primary pitches were on full display Wednesday against the Rangers. First, Yamamoto struck out Marcus Semien — who finished third in AL MVP voting last year — on a 96 mph fastball. That’s around Yamamoto’s usual velocity last season, which is definitely a good sign when we haven’t even reached March.

Yamamoto gave up a hard hit to postseason star Evan Carter two pitches later, but then got a double-play on a grounder from top prospect Wyatt Langford to end the inning.

The first batter of the second inning was Nathaniel Lowe, who won a Silver Slugger at first base in 2022. He’s as much a major-league hitter as you can be, and Yamamoto tortured him with three pitches. He started with a fastball on the inside corner, surprised Lowe with a curveball for a called strike two and then got a supremely ugly swing on a splitter in the dirt for the punch-out.