For nine innings Tuesday night, the Dodgers played with their food at Angel Stadium.
Only in extras, thanks to a four-run rally punctuated by Mookie Betts’ three-run homer, did they finally assert their dominance over the last-place Angels.
In the opener of this two-game Freeway Series, the Dodgers won 6-2 in front of a sold-out crowd of 44,731 in Anaheim, one split between Angels fans and a rowdy contingent of visiting Dodgers fans, all there to witness Shohei Ohtani’s return to his old home.
“Most importantly, it’s about winning the game and I’m glad we won,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. “The biggest part of all this is really being able to play in this stadium and in front of these fans. That’s the part that was special for me.”
Ohtani provided some fireworks in the third inning, lining an RBI triple into the right-field corner and scoring on a Betts single.
After that, however, the Dodgers went quiet, striking out 16 times (including 10 against Reid Detmers, the Angels starter who entered with an earned-run average of more than 6.00) before finally breaking a 2-2 tie in the top of the 10th inning.
Miguel Rojas got the scoring started in extras, hammering a first-pitch sinker from Angels right-hander Roansy Contreras into left field for an RBI single. Then, after Ohtani was intentionally walked with first base open, Betts provided the knockout blow, crushing a hanging, first-pitch slider to left for his 15th home run of the season.
“I understand their perspective,” Betts said of Ohtani getting walked in front of him. “So I was just trying to get a good pitch to hit.”
It was only the third time in Betts’ career that the batter before him was intentionally walked. The other two? Free passes to David Ortiz in 2016, according to SportsNet LA, when Betts was with the Boston Red Sox.
“It’s a tough situation to walk a guy that got $700 [million] to get to the guy that got $350 [million],” starting pitcher Walker Buehler joked of Ohtani and Betts. “He’s pretty good at baseball too.”
The late scoring barrage erased the Dodgers’ bevy of empty swings earlier in the game, as they set a season high for strikeouts and extinguished the fire in a lineup that entered red-hot coming…