Shohei Ohtani made his highly-anticipated pitching debut for the Los Angeles Dodgers and also contributed on offense in a 6-3 victory against the San Diego Padres.
Ohtani only pitched one inning, which was part of the plan, as he has not thrown in a Major League game in more than 650 days. His command was off, as should have been expected, but the stuff looked great and overall, it was an encouraging outing.
He allowed a weak single to Fernando Tatis Jr. to begin the game and another single to Luis Arraez. A sacrifice fly from Manny Machado gave the Padres a 1-0 lead before Ohtani retired the next two batters he faced.
He needed 28 pitches to get through the inning, but hit 100 mph with his fastball. He should get roughly one start per week moving forward and keep increasing his workload with each outing.
On offense, it looked like the Dodgers were going to be shut down by Dylan Cease early as he struck out the first five hitters he faced. It wasn’t until the third inning that the Dodgers got a hit, a leadoff double from Andy Pages.
With two outs in the inning and Pages still on second, Ohtani doubled to tie the game up.
The Padres took the lead back against Ben Casparius in the fourth inning after Gavin Sheets had a leadoff walk and Xander Bogaerts doubled him home. But the Dodgers came back in the fourth inning to take the lead.
Their rally was started with a single from Teoscar Hernández and double from Will Smith. Max Muncy then singled them both home to give L.A. a 3-2 lead.
But they weren’t done there as Andy Pages was hit by a pitch and Tommy Edman singled to bring home Muncy. Ohtani then drove in his second run of the game with a single, and Betts singled home Edman to give the Dodgers a 6-2 lead.
Manny Machado homered in the sixth inning to get one back for the Padres, but that was all they were able to score the rest of the way.
Dodgers bullpen effective against Padres
Anthony Banda took over after Shohei Ohtani and retired the first two batters he faced on strikeouts. He walked the third hitter before being lifted from the game for Casparius.
The right-hander, who was working in bulk, pitched 3.2 innings while allowing two runs on three hits before Alex Vesia took over and recorded the final two outs of the sixth.
Michael Kopech worked a scoreless seventh inning, allowing one hit and striking out one. Tanner Scott struck out one in a perfect eighth inning against the heart of the order.
Kirby Yates recorded the save in the ninth, pitching a perfect inning.
