In Major League Baseball, Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres are facing off in the division series. This is the first postseason for Dodgers star Ohtani Shohei.
The playoffs in the National League West division opened at the Dodger Stadium, the Dodgers’ home ground, on Saturday, local time. Yamamoto Yoshinobu will be the team’s starting pitcher in the first game.
The Dodgers had the most home runs in the National League this season. Ohtani hit 54 of them and won the league’s home run crown.
Ohtani had a red-hot batting average of more than .600 for the last 10 games of the regular season. Against the Padres, he hit .326 during the regular season.
But the Dodgers have concerns over a pitching staff that has been depleted by injuries.
The Padres had eight wins and five losses against the Dodgers during the regular season. San Diego boasts strong starting pitching.
Dylan Cease will take the mound for the Padres in the division series’ first game. He threw a no hitter and marked a team-high 14 wins in the regular season. Darvish Yu is slated to start the second game. During the season, he took the mound as the starter in three games against the Dodgers, achieving a 1.72 earned-run average.
The Padres advanced to this year’s divisional series by winning two consecutive games in the Wild Card Series. The team bested the Dodgers 3 games to 1 when they faced off in the divisional series in 2022.
Each team has two Japanese players, Ohtani and Yamamoto for the Dodgers, and Darvish and Matsui Yuki on the Padres.