LOS ANGELES — A little more than a week ago, Yu Darvish and Shohei Ohtani met in right field at Dodger Stadium.
The number of active players who began their careers in Japan is a small fraternity and the connection between the 38-year-old Darvish and the 30-year-old Ohtani is even tighter as two former Nippon Ham Fighters playing on the West Coast in the United States.
Ohtani even wore Darvish’s No. 11 in Japan before following his “childhood hero,” as he described Darvish on Friday, to the major leagues.
Of course, they’re going to talk.
“We come from the same country, obviously,” Darvish said through interpreter Shingo Horie. “We come from the same culture. We’re here in a foreign country playing baseball and we catch up here and there.”
The relationship, Darvish said, began with the two meeting for a dinner in 2014, more than two years into his big-league career with the Texas Rangers. They continued to meet for dinners and worked out together from time to time.
While Darvish could not specifically recall the conversation they shared during the Padres’ last stop in Los Angeles, photos appeared to show Darvish gripping a baseball as Ohtani looked on. The Dodgers’ designated hitter is recovering from a second Tommy John surgery and is not an option to pitch in the postseason, but the first 50-50 player in MLB history is plenty capable of winning games all by himself as the Dodgers’ leadoff hitter.
Before the Dodgers’ bye, Ohtani was on a .628/.667/1.186 run that saw him blast six homers in 10 games and threaten Luis Arraez’s batting title.
To date, Ohtani is 1-for-5 with two strikeouts off Darvish, although the Padres’ right-hander made sure to point out that his fellow countryman is far from his only focus heading into his Game 2 start.
“I’m facing all nine Dodgers hitters,” Darvish said. “My main focus is to get all of them out, not just Shohei. Going into the game, I just want to keep the focus, keep the concentration at a high level and execute my pitches.”
As for Ohtani’s view of the matchup, he was hoping for an even bigger reunion on the field on Sunday. Yoshinobu Yamamoto was originally scheduled to pitch Game 2 before he was pushed ahead of Jack Flaherty to start Saturday.
“My personal hope was that Darvish would have faced against Yoshinobu,” Ohtani said. “Obviously that’s not going to happen this time around, but I’m very honored and excited to be able to face him.”
Pérez, Jacob added
The Padres set their NLDS roster with one extra arm and two new faces to the active staff. With Joe Musgrove readying for Tommy John surgery, left-hander Martín Pérez and right-hander Alek Jacob were added to a 13-man pitching staff.
Padres manager Mike Shildt described the job for both newcomers to the postseason roster as length options as MLB reverts to traditional extra innings in the postseason.
“Martín is obviously built up,” Shildt said. “He’ll be in the bullpen for whatever the situation arises for. Maybe for extra innings, no ghost runner. Want some length if you get into that environment.”
The fifth starter after the trade deadline, Pérez is also the presumed starter for Game 4 should the series go that long.
He was not on the roster for the wild-card series against the Braves and entered the postseason knowing he’d have to be ready to pivot toward any number of situations.
“This is time to not have any excuses,” Pérez said. “It’s not how comfortable I feel. It’s one thing that I have to do it. We have no time. It’s just three weeks for playoffs. It’s not what you want in that case. They aren’t going to come to you, ‘Hey what do you want to do.’ This is what we need you to do and you gotta do it.”
The extra arm for the longer NLDS series comes at the expense of infielder Nick Ahmed, who appeared in only two games in the regular season after the Padres’ clinched the top wild-card spot and did not appear in either wild-card game against the Braves.
Boo me?
New to the Padres-Dodgers rivalry, Luis Arraez understood he was about to be booed as he lined up for introductions at Dodger Stadium.
At this stage in the game, the only thing that matters on the road is the color of the uniform.
“I don’t know that the Dodger fans don’t like me,” a smiling Arraez said Saturday. “I mean, maybe they hate me tonight because I want to go out there do my job.”
Arraez led off the game with a single to left field and scored on Jurickson Profar’s groundout to second base.
Notable
- Manny Machado’s two-run homer in Saturday’s first inning made him the Padres’ all-time postseason RBI leader with 13. He had been tied with Tony Gwynn (11). Machado’s seven postseason home runs are the most in franchise history.
- Fernando Tatis Jr.’s third-inning double to left-center on a ground ball, off the bat at 118.9 mph, was the hardest-hit ball of his career. The only ball ever hit harder during the postseason was Kyle Schwarber’s 119.7 mph home run off Darvish in Game 1 of the 2022 NLCS at Petco Park.
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