Dodgers beat Korea 5-2 in final exhibition game before season opener

Baseball

Published: 18 Mar. 2024, 21:35 Updated: 18 Mar. 2024, 21:41

Dodgers beat Korea 5-2 in final exhibition game before season opener

Los Angeles Dodgers' hitter Chris Taylor hits a home run in the seven inning of an exhibition game against Team Korea at Gocheok Sky Dome in western Seoul on Monday. [AP/YONHAP]

The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Korean national team 5-2 in the final of four exhibition games at Gocheok Sky Dome in western Seoul on Monday.

The Dodgers got off to a fast start with shortstop Mookie Betts scoring on a Max Muncy single to put the MLB team up 1-0 in the first.

After a quiet second, Korea responded in the third with a single, a double and a pair of sacrifices combining to get Kim Seong-yoon and Kim Hye-seong across the line. That put Team Korea up 2-1, the first time across all four exhibition games that a Korean side has led at any point during a game.

Korea Kim Hye-seong celebrates after hitting a double during an exhibition game against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Gocheok Sky Dome in western Seoul on Monday. [YONHAP]

That lead did not last long, however, with the Dodgers immediately putting up three runs of their own at the bottom of the inning, Will Smith retaking the lead with a two-RBI double and Muncy extending it with an RBI double to put the visitors up 4-2.

Things settled down for the fourth, fifth and sixth, with Chris Taylor adding one more to the Dodgers’ scorecard with the first long ball of the night at the bottom of the seventh for a 5-2 lead.

That capped it off for the game, Dodgers’ starter Bobby Miller taking the win after giving up two runs on five hits with six strikeouts in five innings of work. Korea’s Lee Eui-lee was hit with the loss with three earned runs in just one inning pitched.

Off the field, the exhibition games continued to provide a mix of U.S. and Korean baseball culture, the cheerleaders, loud music and constant chanting of the KBO offset by a fairly lackluster attempt at a seventh inning stretch and a “T-shirt toss” that served as a manual substitution for the T-shirt guns sometimes seen at U.S. ballparks.

The packed crowd — far busier than the midafternoon clash between the San Diego Padres and LG Twins — had a definite preference for Dodgers jerseys, but were quite happy to cheer just as loud for either team.

The loudest cheers were, perhaps not unsurprisingly, reserved for Dodgers’ star Shohei Ohtani, who played six innings before being taken off for Hunter Feduccia. Ohtani’s family including his new wife were also in attendance, sitting in the stands off first base with an accompanying ring of increasingly stressed-looking security guards.

Los Angeles Dodgers' designated hitter Shohei Ohtani prepares for an exhibition game against Team Korea at Gocheok Sky Dome in western Seoul on Monday. [AP/YONHAP]

The Dodgers cheerleaders, meanwhile, had more success leading their fans through an unfamiliar set of cheers than in the previous three games, mixing in a number of tried and tested KBO fight songs, the familiar “Let’s go Dodgers,” and even a hint of Korea’s greatest sporting anthem: Psy’s “Champion.”

Monday’s game wrapped up the exhibition game schedule at Gocheok Sky Dome, the Dodgers having previously beaten the KBO’s Kiwoom Heroes 14-3 while the San Diego Padres edged out Team Korea 1-0 and beat the LG Twins 5-4.

The two big league teams will return to Gocheok Sky Dome later this week for the 2024 MLB Seoul Series, the official opener to the 2024 MLB season to be played as a two-game series on Wednesday and Thursday.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]