CHAVEZ RAVINE — It was a wet night in Los Angeles, but you couldn’t tell it from Shohei Ohtani’s performance. The two-way marvel pitched six inning of one-hit, shut-out baseball as the Dodgers got juuuuuust enough offense to beat the Cleveland Guardians 4-1 to go to 4-1 in the season.
Ruthless Efficiency
Shohei Ohtani took to the mound for his first outing of the year, looking to make an early statement that he needed to be considered among the elite pitchers in the National League. He went a long way toward that on Tuesday.
From the jump, Shohei seemed in control of all his pitches. He probably would like to take the two walks back, but overall, he was in beast mode all night. In the first, the Guards got some loud outs off Ohtani, but went down 1-2-3 nevertheless. In the second, after another flyout, Shohei got his first two strikeouts of the night: Rhys Hoskins on a sweeper, and Bo Naylor on a nasty splitter.
A little traffic
In the next couple innings, Ohtani had to pitch around a little traffic, but he got through it without incident. He gave up two walks in the third, but struck out CJ Kayfus to end the inning. In the fourth, Shohei gave up his first hit, a double to Rhys Hoskins with two outs. But again, Ohtani worked his way out of the trouble by retiring the third out on a fly to Teoscar Hernandez.
Rain, Rain, Go Away
By the middle of the game, it started to rain pretty steadily in the Ravine. And, it seemed to show in Ohtani’s command. In the fifth, he yanked a fastball right into the knee of Angel Martinez to give the Guardians another baserunner. But once again, Ohtani pitched around the traffic. In the sixth, a walk, but another couple of strikeouts to end his day with nothing but zeroes on the scoreboard. Great start. Especially given the conditions. Ohtani’s line for the night: 6.0 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 3 BB, 6 K. Sounds elite to me.
Bats get a couple
The offense was mighty quiet again on Tuesday, continuing a trend that started in the second game of the year. This time, the got a run in the fourth on an Andy Pages RBI single to the opposite field, and then another in the sixth on a towering home run from Max Muncy (his first of the year). In the bottom of the eighth, the Dodgers tacked on two more insurance runs on a Teoscar Hernandez single and another RBI from Andy Pages on a single to put some distance between the Dodgers and Cleveland.
Diaz closes it out
Edwin Diaz came in for the ninth, even though it was a non-save situation, but he finished the job. He gave the Guardians a couple of free baserunners with a HBP and a walk, making things a little more nerve-wracking than one would like. Things got a little dicier when Kyle Manzardo singled home a run to put Cleveland on the board, but he bounced back and struck out the final two hitters to secure the win.
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