LOS ANGELES — If the Dodgers are playing “checkbook baseball,” Miles Mikolas suffered the penalty for early withdrawal.
The top three in the Dodgers’ lineup – Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman – combined for five hits, including two home runs, drove in four runs and scored six as the Dodgers beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 7-1, in their first game of the season on Thursday afternoon at Dodger Stadium.
The Cardinals’ season-opening starter, Mikolas criticized the Dodgers’ big-spending ways this offseason as “checkbook baseball” and said he hoped the collection of “Midwestern farmers” playing for the Cardinals could “stick it to the Dodgers.”
The big sticks at the top of the Dodgers’ lineup did the plowing against Mikolas.
The first four hitters reached base. Betts led off with a walk and went to third base when Ohtani doubled into the corner. Ohtani didn’t see third base coach Dino Ebel hold Betts at third and ran into the first out of the inning.
But Freeman singled in Betts and, after Will Smith singled, Freeman scored on a sacrifice fly by Max Muncy.
Betts led off the third inning with his second home run of the season (he homered in one of the two games in Seoul). Ohtani walked and Freeman dropped a two-run home run over the fence for a 5-0 getaway against Mikolas.
The top three purchases in the Dodgers’ lineup were 5 for 6 with two home runs and five runs scored before Mikolas headed back to the farm in the fifth inning.
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Betts walked again later in the game and has reached base in 11 of his first 15 plate appearances this season – four singles, a double, two home runs and four walks. He has already scored five runs and driven in eight in the Dodgers’ first three games.
Ohtani has started his Dodgers career by going 5 for 13. Freeman is 3 for 9 with five walks.
In his second Opening Day start of the season, right-hander Tyler Glasnow gave up just two hits in six innings – both of them to Paul Goldschmidt, one a solo home run.
More to come on this story.