LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani let the first pitch he saw from San Diego Padres right-hander Michael King sail past him for a ball in the first inning on Friday night at Dodger Stadium. Ohtani slammed the next one into the seats beyond the left-center field fence for a first-inning home run.
It was the 175th homer of Ohtani’s career, tying him with Hideki Matsui for the most by a Japanese-born player in Major League Baseball history. It also was his fourth since leaving the Angels for the Dodgers and signing a mammoth 10-year, $700 million contract during the offseason.
It would have been an added bonus if it was a prelude to a hard-hitting Dodgers’ victory, but it wasn’t to be as the Padres stormed back to win 8-7 on Jackson Merrill’s RBI single off reliever Alex Vesia with two outs in the 11th inning. Padres closer Robert Saurez blanked the Dodgers in the 11th for the win.
The Dodgers built a 7-3 lead over the Padres, by the end of the third inning, with all of their runs coming on homers. The Padres played video game baseball for a while, but couldn’t keep pace against Dodgers’ starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who atoned for a clunker of a MLB debut March 21 against San Diego.
As a cool, breezy afternoon turned into a cool, breezy evening, it didn’t seem the conditions were ideal for a home run-hitting contest. But in this era, all things seem possible and so it was that the ball rocketed to the outer reaches of Dodger Stadium right from the first inning Friday.
Dodgers fan favorite Manny Machado delivered a two-run homer off Yamamoto in the first inning to give San Diego a 2-0 lead that would not last. Yamamoto lasted only one inning, giving up five runs on four hits against the Padres in Seoul, South Korea, a truly forgettable start to his MLB career.
There would be no repeat Friday.
Yamamoto gave up three runs and four hits with six strikeouts and one walk in five innings before Dodgers manager replaced him with Daniel Hudson to start the…
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