SEOUL, South Korea — The people of Seoul welcomed Major League Baseball with open arms, pounding drums, dance teams and coordinated cheering. The Dodgers welcomed the San Diego Padres to the slow water torture their lineup could inflict on opposing pitching staffs this season.
Seven hits and nine walks – four of them involving pitch-clock violations by the Padres’ pitchers – kept turning that lineup over until the Dodgers broke through for four runs in the eighth inning to beat the Padres 5-2 in their season-opening game Wednesday.
“I just think there’s no give,” said Gavin Lux who inadvertently pushed across the go-ahead run in his first regular-season game since 2022. “One through nine, everyone’s going to give you a tough at-bat. We’re going to grind you down, grind you out and plus you’ve got guys that can do damage up and down the lineup, too.
“Today was a good look at. We’re not going to give up, not going to give in and one through nine, we’re going to grind you down.”
The most anticipated season perhaps in Dodgers franchise history started in historic fashion for its location, 6,000 miles from Los Angeles in Seoul’s Gocheok Sky Dome, and the trifecta of former MVPs at the top of their lineup – Mookie Betts (2018 American League), Shohei Ohtani (2021 and 2023 American League) and Freddie Freeman (2020 NL).
It was only the fourth time in major-league history a team had former MVPs batting 1-2-3 in their lineup – the Cincinnati Reds did it in 1976 (Pete Rose, Joe Morgan and Johnny Bench) and again in 1978 (Rose, Morgan and George Foster) and the Philadelphia Phillies in 1983 (Rose, Morgan and Mike Schmidt).
The Dodgers’ trio did what they could to light a fire through seven innings. Betts and Ohtani were on base twice each and Freeman three times. But the Dodgers went a collective 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position before they broke through in the eighth with Betts and Ohtani each stroking RBI singles.
“The biggest thing is that we got that W and the way we got it, coming back late in the game like that proves that we’re a really good team,” Shohei Ohtani said through his interpreter after going 2 for 4 with a stolen base and an RBI in his Dodgers debut.
Ohtani got his first hit as a Dodger with two outs in the third inning, ripping a high fly ball foul down the right field line (with an exit velocity of 119.2 mph) then ripping a single to right two pitches later (112.3 mph off the bat).
“Sometimes with hitters, one swing gets you back,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “And even in spring, he was getting some hits. But I really feel that one swing where he pulled it in the air foul, he really took a good swing and I think that bled into that at-bat where he lined a ball into right field for a hit and had another big base hit later in the game.”
Ohtani’s new wife, Mamiko, had barely stopped sharing high-fives in the Dodgers’ family seats when her husband stole second base on the next pitch. Back-to-back walks loaded the bases for Max Muncy but he struck out.
An inning later, an error by third baseman Tyler Wade allowed Teoscar Hernandez to reach base and he eventually scored the Dodgers’ first run of the season on a sacrifice fly by Jason Heyward. But the Dodgers went into the eighth, down 2-1.
“I felt like we could have scored a lot more runs if I’d gotten on earlier or gotten on after Mookie,” Ohtani said. “I think there were a lot of chances to score more runs than we did today.”
They finally broke through in the eighth – literally.
Two walks and a single loaded the bases with no outs. Kiké Hernandez tied the game with a sacrifice fly before Lux rolled over and bounced a ground ball to the right side of the infield.
First baseman Jake Cronenworth got to it, but the ball broke the webbing of his glove and bounced through for an error on a rare “equipment failure” call, the go-ahead run scoring on the play.
“I didn’t realize it broke through his web – I thought it just ticked off, and then I saw him run back to the dugout, like, ‘What the (heck)?’” Lux said. “I’ll take being lucky right there, I guess.”
Betts and Ohtani followed with RBI singles.
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“It sucks,” Cronenworth said of the costly play. “I don’t know what else to say.”
The Padres did little offensively, managing just four hits in the game despite Tyler Glasnow being far from sharp in his five innings. Glasnow bounced numerous curveballs and walked four, giving up single runs in the third and fourth innings – both set up by leadoff walks.
“It was bad. The whole game, I just didn’t have it,” he said of the curveball. “Honestly, just my slider today is kind of what I was pitching off of. And then everything else felt kind of inconsistent. I tried to get it back later. But it was just one of those days where it was not really there.”