TOKYO – The Cubs are still looking for their first win of the season after dropping the Tokyo Series finale to the Dodgers 6-3 on Wednesday.
Cubs starter Justin Steele gave up five runs and five hits, including homers by Tommy Edman and Kiké Hernández. The Cubs offense slowly chipped away, but not enough.
The Cubs squandered their best chance to do damage against Dodgers starter Roki Sasaki, who was making his major-league debut. In the third inning, Jon Berti hit an one-out infield single and then Ian Happ, Seiya Suzuki and Kyle Tucker drew consecutive walks to load the bases and push in the team’s first run of the night.
Sasaki re-found the strike zone in time to strike out Michael Busch and Matt Shaw to escape the jam.
The Cubs tacked on another run in the fourth inning, with Sasaki out of the game, with an opposite-field line-drive single from Ian Happ, cutting the Dodgers’ lead to three runs.
Shohei Ohtani had his moment in the fifth inning, after Nate Pearson replaced Steele. He hit a lofting fly ball to right-center field, high enough for both Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong and right fielder Kyle Tucker to park under it. But the ball carried just far enough, bouncing off a fan’s hands and back into play.
The Dodger-friendly crowd erupted in applause when the umpire signaled it was a home run, and then again when the call withstood a replay review.
In the bottom half of the inning, Matt Shaw’s first major-league hit, a comebacker that glanced off the end of reliever Jack Dreyer’s glove proved significant. Dansby Swanson drove a double into the left-field corner, and Shaw flew around the bases, diving head first across home plate as the throw home soared over Dodgers catcher Will Smith.