A little bit of Seoul: dumb Dodgers' luck, and other observations

By Jeff Kallman

The Dodgers and Padres brought big-league baseball to Seoul, South Korea.Photo byWikimedia

Rest assured, neither the Dodgers nor the Padres intended to cross the Pacific to open their regular seasons with the idea that a freak occurrence would turn a slim but late Padres lead into a Dodger overthrow. Entering the top of the eighth (the Padres were declared the home team for the game) the Dodgers had one run on four hits to the Padres’ two on three.

Then, Max Muncy opened with a walk when ball four followed a pitch clock violation. Teoscar Hernández (the best corner outfield bat on the free agency market until the Dodgers signed him for one year and $23.5 million) singled Muncy to second, and Jams Outman drew a four-pitch walk to load the pads for prodigal Dodger Enrique Hernández to send Muncy home with a game-tying sacrifice fly.

Up stepped Gavin Lux, whose difficulties prompted the Dodgers to slide him over to second base and hand the shortstop job “permanently, for now” to Mookie Betts, long distinguished in right field and better than serviceable after moving to second base last year. Facing Padres reliever Adrian Morejon in relief of Jhony Brito, Lux swatted the first pitch up the first base side and right into the glove of Padres first baseman Jake Cronenworth.

“That was a double play ball,” said Padres manager Mike Schildt postgame. Until it wasn’t. Inexplicably, the ball tore through the glove webbing. “That’s a tough error for Cro,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts.

Assigning errors is problematic enough without an unexpected equipment malfunction dropping one onto a first baseman’s resume. Read the box score alone and it’ll say nothing but “E-3.” It won’t tell you Cronenworth reached for the ball unaware the web became a doggie door.

A batted ball is supposed to find holes through the infield, not through a glove, right? Say whatever else you will about the Dodgers as the profligate beasts of the National League West, but they’re still baseball players, and they’re well grounded against looking the proverbial gift horse in the proverbial mouth. Teoscar Hernández shot home with the tiebreaking run, all hands were safe at first and second otherwise, and the Mookie Monster was about to take the batter’s box.

Down 0-2, Betts singled Outman home. Up stepped Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers’ ten-year, $700 million man, looking for his second base hit of the evening. He’d thrilled the Seoul crowd earlier when he hit the roof with a hard, fast, long foul. This time, they’d just have to settle for Ohtani dumping an RBI quail into moderate left center field, sending Lux home and leaving first and second once again.

Thus the 5-2 score that would stick when Freddie Freeman ended the Dodger eighth flying into an unlikely Area Code 9-3-6, the Padres managed an un-cashed leadoff single off Dodger reliever Joe Kelly in the bottom of the eighth, the Dodgers left the bases loaded in the top of the ninth, and the Padres went down in order in the bottom of the ninth.

Neither a reported bomb threat at Gocheok Sky Dome nor Ohtani forgetting to re-touch the pad at second on the Freeman fly to cause the eighth inning-ending double play compromised the fun. The bomb threat proved empty when police found nothing incendiary after they received a tip that Ohtani himself was the threat’s target.

The opener of the two-game Seoul Series, the first time American MLB has played games that count in South Korea, wouldn’t cause hand-wringing over constant power. The Dodgers were gifted nine walks and a hit batsman from San Diego pitching; none of the game’s eleven hits went for extra bases.

Speaking of pitch clock violations, the clock now reduced by two seconds more with men on base, the Padres were called for four of them—two on Willy Peralta including on the Muncy walk, one on San Diego starter Yu Darvish, and one on reliever Yuki Matsui. Swell. (For whom?)

Meanwhile, I was left to pray just a moment that, somehow, the game might provoke another takeaway: umpire accountability. Nobody working the first of the Seoul Series committed any truly egregious wrong call, but I couldn’t help remembering what I learned of the Korean Baseball Organization and how it deals with errant umpires.

Back in 2020, I learned an inconsistent strike zone in a game between the SK Wyverns and the Hanwha Eagles prompted the KBO to demote the entire umpiring crew to the country’s Futures League for re-training. Wyverns and Eagles players alike complained about the umps. The league actually listened and acted.

I also noted Yahoo! Sports writer Mark Townsend observing, “Try to picture this scenario. MLB officials approach Joe West. MLB officials then inform Joe West that his entire crew is headed back to rookie ball for retraining. And you thought the stare West gave Madison Bumgarner was frightening?”

Well, West is retired and the Show’s errant umps continue apace. What would have happened if the Seoul Series umpiring crew of Lance Barksdale, Carlos Torres, Jansen Visconti, and Jeremie Rehak, had blown calls or—in Barksdale’s case, being behind the plate for the first game—shown a floating strike zone? I’d imagine any Korean baseball officials in attendance might have had something to say about American umpiring that would have been many things — flattering not being among them.

Frankly, I’d love to see MLB government approaching a crew chief (Laz Diaz comes to mind at once) to say the entire crew’s going back to Triple-A for re-training until they get the strike zones and other things right. The KBO doesn’t suffer fools gladly, even if they happen to be umpires. The American Show’s government still seems to think they enhance the entertainment factor.

Those who fear the advent of Robby the Umpbot—and forget how the accountability issue provoked the self-immolation (no, it was not a strike) of the original Major League Umpires Association—might want to ponder that one.

Jeff Kallman is an IBWAA Life Member who writes Throneberry Fields Forever. He has written for the Society for American Baseball Research, The Hardball Times, Sports-Central, and other publications. He has lived in Las Vegas since 2007, where he plays the guitar and writes music when not writing baseball. He remains a Met fan since the day they were born.