His second at-bat, though, won’t soon be forgotten. With two men on base and the Dodgers down 3-0, Ohtani smashed a game-tying home run in the bottom of the second inning:
All Padres starting pitcher Dylan Cease could do was watch the ball clear the fence as it traveled 372 feet. Meanwhile, the Dodger Stadium faithful roared with excitement as their superstar lived up to the hype of his playoff debut.
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The Padres had taken a 3-0 lead in the first off Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Ohtani’s countryman who is also making his postseason debut in the National League Division Series.
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Ohtani, who hit .310 in the regular season, scored Will Smith, who walked, and Gavin Lux, who singled, to make it 3-3.
In his next at-bat in the fourth inning, Ohtani hit a single that loaded the bases.
Ohtani is getting his first chance on the October playoff stage his after spending the last six years with the Los Angeles Angels, who never had a winning record or made the postseason during his tenure.
Ohtani signed a record $700 million, 10-year deal with the Dodgers in December.
He didn’t pitch this season while rehabbing from a second elbow surgery he had a year ago. That allowed him to focus on his offense, and he exploded, becoming Major League Baseball’s first player with 50 homers and 50 stolen bases in a season.
Lane Thomas hit a three-run homer in a five-run outburst before Detroit got an out, and the Cleveland Guardians unleashed their lights-out bullpen to complete a four-hitter in a 7-0 win over the Tigers in an AL Division Series opener on Saturday.
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Thomas’ shot — on his first career postseason swing — helped the Guardians cool off the Tigers, who stormed into the playoffs with a second-half surge before sweeping AL West champion Houston in the wild-card round.
“It started with the guys in front of me,” Thomas said.
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Tanner Bibee pitched 4 2/3 innings before Guardians manager Stephen Vogt swung the door open to baseball’s best bullpen to finish off the Tigers. Relievers combined for 4 1/3 hitless innings to finish and match the largest shutout victory margin in Cleveland postseason history.
Detroit struck 13 out times and didn’t get a runner past first in the final four innings.
Cleveland’s bullpen was as advertised. Rookie Cade Smith (1-0) replaced Bibee and struck out all four batters. Tim Herrin took care of the seventh, Hunter Gaddis the eighth, and Emmanuel Clase, who led the AL with 47 saves, worked the ninth.
“It’s incredible. to come out and do what they do, day in and day out, especially during the season, 162 (games), it shows what we have back there,” Thomas said.
David Fry added a two-run, sixth-inning double for the AL Central champion Guardians, who were unaffected by not playing for almost a week with a first-round bye.
Game 2 is Monday, when the Tigers will turn to Tarik Skubal, the favorite to win the AL Cy Young Award, to try and even the best-of-five series.
The 2,327th meeting between Detroit and Cleveland was the first between the franchises and Central division rivals in the postseason.
It was as good as over after one inning.
Tigers manager A.J. Hinch has made the right decisions for months as his young club went from being under .500 at the trade deadline to qualifying for the postseason with a 33-13 flourish since Aug. 11.
Hinch used his bullpen in Game 1 from the start and it backfired.
The Guardians sent nine batters to the plate in the first with Thomas’ moon shot into the left-field bleachers opening the 5-0 lead. Cleveland became the first team in AL postseason history to score five runs before recording an out.
Steven Kwan got it rolling with a leadoff double against Tigers starter Tyler Holton (0-1) and Fry walked. José Ramírez followed with a hard hopper to third that Zach McKinstry misplayed for an error, allowing Kwan to score.
Josh Naylor’s RBI single made it 2-0 and Hinch pulled Holton after just four batters to bring in Reese Olson — the move blew up in seconds.
Thomas, who batted just .143 with 33 strikeouts in his first month with Cleveland after being acquired from Washington in July, made his first postseason at-bat with the Guardians unforgettable.
He turned on Olson’s first pitch — a slider down the heart of the plate — and launched it over the wall, sending the majority of 33,548 fans inside Progressive Field into a frenzy.
Bibee admitted feeling nerves ahead of the opener, and he showed some in the first.
He gave up a one-out single and hit Riley Greene with two outs, prompting a visit from pitching coach Carl Willis. Bibee got Colt Keith on a lazy fly for the final out on his 27th pitch.
Taking the mound in the second with a five-run lead helped Bibee settle in. The right-hander gave up four hits and struck out six.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Guardians: RHP Alex Cobb, a candidate to start Game 3, was added to the ALDS roster after finishing the regular season on the injured list with a blister on his middle finger. Cobb’s postseason experience — he beat Cleveland in the 2013 wild-card round with Tampa Bay — certainly helped his cause along with being a former teammate of Vogt’s. Cobb was acquired in a July trade from San Francisco.
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Skubal led the AL in wins (18), ERA (2.39) and strikeouts (228). The left-hander is expected to face Guardians RHP Matthew Boyd, who spent eight seasons with the Tigers and remains close friends with Skubal.
“This is it for Clayton for 2024,” manager Dave Roberts said Saturday before Game 1 of the National League Division Series between the Dodgers and San Diego Padres.
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A 36-year-old left-hander, Kershaw is a three-time Cy Young Award winner and 10-time All-Star. He didn’t pitch until July 25 after having offseason shoulder surgery. He went on the injured list Aug. 31 with a bone spur in his left big toe.
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“Clayton has done everything he can to keep this thing moving forward and giving himself a chance to participate in the postseason,” Roberts said. “But where he’s at right now, physically, the foot, the toe just is not cooperating. It’s actually getting worse.”
Kershaw had been left off the Dodgers’ NLDS roster earlier Saturday before Roberts confirmed that his season was over.
He was 2-2 with a 4.50 ERA in seven starts.
Because of his toe, Kershaw couldn’t pitch the way he wanted to and other areas of his body were overcompensating for it.
He said he’s been assured by doctors that he doesn’t need surgery.
“It’s something that takes time I guess, which is the worst thing because I’m not good at that,” Kershaw said last week. “My arm, I’m keeping it going the best I can. I really think when my toe is better, I will be ready to pitch. I need to get close to 100% so I can throw.”
He had been eager to redeem himself after last year’s stunning postseason debacle. Kershaw got hammered by Arizona in Game 1 of the National League Division Series, giving up six hits and six runs in the first inning.
Padres vs. Dodgers: Shohei Ohtani’s postseason debut | NLDS Game 1 | MLB on FOX
His postseason ERA is 4.22 over 194 innings pitched. His regular-season ERA of 2.48 is the best of any MLB pitcher with at least 1,500 innings pitched since 1920.
Kershaw signed a one-year contract in February plus a 2025 player option worth $5 million.
