The 2024 Major League Baseball regular season got underway this week with two games at the Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul, South Korea. These were the first two Major League Baseball regular season games ever played in South Korea, with the Dodgers winning 5-2 on Wednesday, and the Padres winning 15-11 in a 26-run offensive slugfest on Thursday.
Dodgers win
Los Angeles was trailing 2-1 after seven innings before scoring four runs in the eighth inning and recording a three-run win. The key play in this game was rather bizarre. With one out in the top of the eighth inning, a routine ground ball off the bat of Gavin Lux literally went through the webbing of San Diego first baseman Jake Cronenworth’s glove and scored Teoscar Hernandez, who was playing in his first regular season game with the Dodgers. The Dodgers scored four runs on three singles despite a base running mistake by star designated hitter Shohei Ohtani of Oshu, Japan. Ohtani, Hernandez and shortstop Mookie Betts of Nashville, Tennessee were the Dodgers with eighth inning singles.
The winning pitcher was reliever Daniel Hudson of Lynchburg, Virginia, who pitched a scoreless seventh inning. Meanwhile, Evan Phillips of Salisbury, Maryland had the save.
Padres win
What we learned on Thursday was the fact that Yoshinobu Yamamoto of Bizen, Japan was downright awful, and needs to pitch much better to be considered worthy of his 12-year contract worth $325 million he signed three days before Christmas. Speaking of Christmas, Yamamoto was literally lit up like a Christmas tree. In one inning of work, he gave up five earned runs and four hits, had one walk, hit one batter and threw a wild pitch. Anyway you look at it, the 43 pitches Yamamoto threw was a complete and utter disaster.
Offensively, the Padres star was Cronenworth, who rebounded exceptionally well after his defensive error on Wednesday. He collected four hits in four at bats. Of his four hits were three singles and a triple. Cronenworth also scored two runs, had a sacrifice fly, and was hit by a pitch.
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