MIAMI — The Dodgers’ greatest participant waited for his or her smallest one within the visiting dugout at LoanDepot Park on Monday evening.
Then, the 2 shared a celebratory embrace.
Like many Asian-born gamers in recent times, Hyeseong Kim has lengthy appeared as much as Shohei Ohtani. The South Korean infielder adopted the Japanese famous person’s profession whereas starting his personal baseball journey within the Korean Baseball Group. When Kim signed with the Dodgers after being posted for main league golf equipment throughout the offseason, the possibility to play alongside Ohtani and the membership’s different assortment of famous person gamers was probably the most attractive appeals.
Within the Dodgers’ 7-4 win over the Miami Marlins on Monday, Kim lastly shared a beginning lineup with Ohtani for the primary time, getting his first big-league begin after being known as up this weekend.
And throughout the high of the fifth inning, the 2 co-starred in a sequence that put the sport out of attain — Kim accumulating his first MLB hit on a leadoff single, earlier than Ohtani hit a house run that made the rating 5-0.
After rounding the bases following his ninth blast of the season, Ohtani returned to the dugout and was greeted by a line of high-fives from teammates. Trailing just a few steps behind him, Kim did the identical.
When the 2 lastly met — Ohtani’s hulking 6-foot-3 construct towering over Kim’s wiry 5-10 body — Ohtani put each his fingers on his new teammate’s helmet, then cracked a large smile whereas playfully leaping up and down.
A second to recollect; on a day that, for the 26-year-old Kim, was filled with them in a formidable on-field show.
Drawn into the beginning lineup to face Marlins starter Sandy Alcantara, a former Cy Younger Award winner working his method again from a Tommy John surgical procedure, Kim flashed all of the instruments that prompted the Dodgers to offer him a three-year, $12.5-million contract.
Dodgers second baseman Hyeseong Kim throws to first throughout the first inning Monday in opposition to the Marlins.
(Marta Lavandier / Related Press)
He recorded two hits, following his opposite-field line drive within the fifth with a bloop RBI single an inning later. He stole his second profession base, racing to second two pitches earlier than Ohtani’s dwelling run, simply as he had as a pinch-runner the evening earlier than. He virtually had a defensive net gem at second base, as effectively, charging to area a sluggish grounder within the eighth inning earlier than flipping a toss together with his glove that Freddie Freeman dropped at first base.
The Dodgers (24-11) had loads of different contributors Monday. They obtained two hits every from Freeman (together with a third-inning dwelling run), Mookie Betts (his fifth multi-hit sport out of the final six), Andy Pages and Teoscar Hernández (who left the sport early with left hamstring tightness). They obtained 4 strong innings of bulk reduction from Ben Casparius, the rookie right-hander who has been stretched out to compensate for the Dodgers’ banged-up rotation.
However nobody’s efficiency was as significant as Kim’s. He obtained his first profession hit, his first profession RBI and a short, joyful second celebrating with the perfect participant within the sport.
