SAN DIEGO -- The Los Angeles Dodgers found this town to their liking during the opening series of the season, blanking the San Diego Padres for three consecutive days.
The three-game sweep was completed Wednesday with a 7-0 victory, as the Dodgers outscored their National League West rivals 25-0 in the series.
If season debuts from pitchers Clayton Kershaw and Scott Kazmir seemed hard to follow, Kenta Maeda did his best to top each of his teammates’ one-hit outings. He not only held the Padres to no runs on five hits over six innings without a walk, he hit a solo home run in the fourth inning in his second career at-bat.
Maeda was the first Dodgers player to hit a home run in his major league debut since Jose Offerman in 1990.
The scoreless streak nearly ended in the sixth inning when Cory Spangenberg was on third base and Wil Myers hit a ground ball to first base. Instead of making the second out by touching the first-base bag, Adrian Gonzalez went home in an apparent attempt to preserve the scoreless streak.
Spangenberg was called out on a tag from catcher A.J. Ellis, but the replay appeared to show that he actually was safe. The call was not overturned after it was reviewed, though. Maeda then struck out Yangervis Solarte to end the threat, slapping his glove before returning to the dugout.
The Dodgers wasted little time getting going, scoring four runs in the first inning, two coming home on a single from Joc Pederson. Those four runs gave the Dodgers 22 runs in their first 19 innings of the season.
