The MLB baseball season kicks off Wednesday, March 20th in Seoul, South Korea at 6:00 AM Eastern time here in the United States. The matchup between the NL West rivals will be a good one to kick off the season. The Dodgers made a lot of noise this offseason with the new additions of Shohei Ohtani, Tyler Glasnow, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto all of whom plan to play a huge role with the Dodgers.
Game Details:
Dodgers vs. Padres time, info
Date: Wednesday, March 20 | Time: 6:05 a.m. ET (3:05 a.m. PT)
Location: Gocheok Sky Dome (Seoul, South Korea)
TV channel: ESPN, SportsNet LA, Padres TV
Starting Pitching Matchup
RHP- Tyler Glasnow
The Dodgers are handing the ball off to Tyler Glasnow who they acquired from the Tampa Bay Rays this offseason in a trade. Glasnow started 21 games last season for the Rays going 10-7 over 120 innings. He struck out 162 batters last season, had a 3.53 ERA and a 1.08 WHIP. He has a four-pitch arsenal in 2023 he threw 1,894 pitches of those his four seamer was used 43.6%, Slider 34.8%, Curveball 21.3%, and a changeup 0.3% of the time. Glasnow is a talented arm when healthy and should be fun to watch against this Padres lineup on Wednesday.
RHP- Yu Darvish
The Padres will be giving Japanese-born star Yu Darvish the nod on the opening-day matchup against the Dodgers on Wednesday. Darvish started 24 games last year for the Padres going 8-10 over 136.1 innings pitched. He struck out 141 batters and had an ERA of 4.56 and a 1.30 WHIP. Darish has a nine-pitch arsenal to work with. Over 2,218 pitches thrown last season, he used them as such, Sinker 18.6%, Sweeper 18.5%, Slider 17.5%, Four Seamer 16.6%, Cutter 9.1%, Split finger 7.8%, Knuckle curve 6.6%, Curveball 5.1% and a changeup 0.1% of the time. As you can see Darvish uses a wide array of pitches to keep hitters off balance. This will be an interesting test early in the season for the veteran.
Storylines to pay attention to
The Dodgers announced late in spring training that Mookie Betts would be swapping with Gavin Lux and handling the shortstop duties with Lux moving to second base. Betts is a phenomenal athlete and has looked sharp when handling ground balls from short in camp. It will be interesting to see how Mookie handles the transition considering he was intended to make the move from the outfield to second base this season. Tomorrow will be his first real action from shortstop, so keep an eye out on those ground balls and situations to see how he reacts throughout the first game at the new spot. The Dodgers will have free-agent superstar Shohei Ohtani at the DH position tomorrow. I think between him tomorrow and Yamamoto starting game two all eyes at the stadium will be glued to these two over the two-game series. I am interested to see how Ohtani attacks Darvish in game one, should be a fun matchup to watch!
For the Padres top prospect Jackson Merrill will be the starting Center fielder and batting at the bottom of the order, it will be interesting to see how the young man handles himself during the two-game series in Korea. He shined during Spring Training beating out Jose Azocar so the team hopes he carries over his momentum from the plate into the regular season. The other interesting aspect of this game that I want to see why is Manny Machado’s glove being removed from the field and having him DH to start the year. It will be interesting to see who gets the nod at Third base tomorrow, the options besides Machado are, Tyler Wade, Eguy Rosario, or Graham Pauley none of whom have the defensive abilities of Machado. Tomorrow will, be interesting to see how the Padres roll out their lineup to compete against the stacked Dodgers team.
Summary
I think the Dodgers sweep the two-game series and kick off the 2024 season showing the rest of the Major Leagues they are on a mission this season. I think this series will be a fun one to watch in general with all the superstar talent on both sides of the diamond, but I think it’ll put the rest of the league on notice. These offseason moves look good on paper and will look even better on the field as a finished product. Let the season begin enjoy watching the games those of you who can get out of bed in time to watch it will be fun to watch.
