Shohei Ohtani’s RBI single capped a four-run eighth-inning rally in his Dodgers debut, and Los Angeles beat the San Diego Padres 5-2 in Wednesday’s MLB season opener.
The game turned when a routine grounder went through the webbing of the glove of first baseman Jake Cronenworth as the tying run scored.
Ohtani went 2 for 5 in his first game since leaving the Los Angeles Angels for a record $700m, 10-year contract with the Dodgers. A crowd of 15,952 was on hand to watch at the Gocheok Sky Dome for MLB’s first game in South Korea.
The two-way star, limited to batting following elbow surgery, also had a mental error that caused the final out of the eighth. He was called out when he passed second base and then failed to retouch the bag while retreating on Freddie Freeman’s flyout, causing an inning-ending double play.
A bomb threat did not seem to affect pregame preparations. Police found no explosives and said they acted on a tip that the threat was against Ohtani.
San Diego led 2-1 entering the eighth when Max Muncy led off with a walk against Wandy Peralta. Teoscar Hernández, also making his Dodgers debut, singled off Jhony Brito, among the players the Padres obtained in the trade that sent star Juan Soto to the New York Yankees.
Josh Outman walked – Padres pitchers issued nine free passes – and Kiké Hernández’s sacrifice fly tied the score. Adrián Morejón relieved and Gavin Lux hit a chopper that Cronenworth tried to backhand only for the ball to go right through the webbing of the first baseman’s mitt as Hernández came home for a 3-2 lead. Cronenworth was charged with the hard-luck error. Mookie Betts and Ohtani followed with RBI singles.
Betts, Ohtani and Freeman became the first MVPs to hit 1-2-3 in a batting order since Philadelphia’s Joe Morgan, Pete Rose and Mike Schmidt during 10 games in 1993.
Betts, moved to shortstop this season, combined with Ohtani to go 4 for 9 at the top of the order.
With new wife Mamiko Tanaka watching from the strands, Ohtani got his first hit with the Dodgers in a 112.3 mph single to right against Yu Darvish. He tried to steal second but was sent back because of umpire interference by Lance Barksdale.
Xander Bogaerts put the Padres ahead in the third with a run-scoring single off Tyler Glasnow. Bogaerts became the third player with hits in five nations after Edgardo Alfonzo and Paul Goldschmidt, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Bogaerts also has hits in the US, Canada, Mexico and England.
In the first game since MLB shortened the pitch clock with runners on base, Padres pitchers were called for four violations, including two by Peralta and one each by Darvish and Yuki Matsui.
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San Diego’s Ha-Seong Kim, playing in his native country, was 0 for 3 with a walk.
