Dodgers to open season against Padres in Seoul early Wednesday

The Dodgers will open their much-anticipated 2024 regular season early Wednesday morning in Seoul, South Korea, against the San Diego Padres, with Shohei Ohtani making his Dodger debut after signing the largest contract in professional sports history.

First pitch is scheduled for 3:05 a.m. Pacific Time, with another new Dodger, Tyler Glasnow, taking the mound for Los Angeles against the Padres'  Yu Darvish, a former Dodger.

The Dodgers will be the visiting team Wednesday as the two-game series opens, but they will be the home team for Thursday's second game, which also starts at 3:05 a.m. Los Angeles time.

You ready? The 2024 season kicks off tonight in Korea. #SeoulSeries pic.twitter.com/0IvsbPBiVE

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) March 20, 2024

Both games from Gocheok Sky Dome will be televised by SportsNet LA.   

The signing of Ohtani to a 10-year, $700 million contract will give the Dodgers three Most Valuable Players at the top of their lineup.   

Leadoff hitter Mookie Betts was the 2018 American League MVP when he played for the Boston Red Sox. Ohtani, the unanimous selection as AL MVP in 2021 and 2023 when he played for the Los Angeles Angels, will bat second, followed by Freddie Freeman, the 2020 National League MVP when he played for the Atlanta Braves.   

Oddsmakers have made the Dodgers a 16-5 to 15-4 win the World Series, with the Braves the second choice from 9-2 to 11-2.   

Glasnow, a right-hander, will also be making his Dodger debut Wednesday. The team acquired the 2011 graduate of William S. Hart High School in Santa Clarita from the Tampa Bay Rays in a four-player trade Dec. 16 and signed him to a five-year contract extension for $136.5 million.

Glasnow was 10-7 in 2023 with 162 strikeouts in 120 innings in 21 starts, setting career highs for victories, strikeouts, starts and innings pitched.

He will be making his second career Opening Day start in a major- league career that began in 2016 with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He also started the 2021 opener for the Rays.

Xander Bogaerts is the lone Padre to have faced Glasnow. He has a .167 average and no home runs or RBIs in 12 at-bats against the 30-year-old.   

Glasnow will be starting against San Diego for the first time. He made three relief appearances against the Padres in 2018 for Pittsburgh with a 1.80 ERA in five innings.

Darvish will be making his third Opening Day start for the Padres and fourth of his major-league career, which began in 2012 with the Texas Rangers. The 37-year-old right-hander was 8-10 with a 4.56 ERA in 24 starts in 2023.   

Darvish is 4-5 with a 2.38 ERA in 12 starts against the Dodgers, including a 1-0 record and 1.98 ERA in 13 2/3 innings in two starts in 2023.   

Ohtani has never faced Darvish. Freeman has a .286 average with two home runs and three RBIs in 28 at-bats against Darvish, while Betts has a .194 average, one home run and one RBI in 31 at-bats versus the righty.   

The Dodgers were 100-62 in 2023 and won the NL West for the 10th time in 11 seasons. But they lost their first postseason series for a second consecutive season -- getting swept in three games by the Arizona Diamondbacks in an NL Division Series.

San Diego was 82-80 to finish third in the five-team NL West, 18 games behind the Dodgers and two games behind the Diamondbacks and Miami Marlins in the race for the final two NL wild-card berths.

Mike Shildt will be making his debut as the Padres' manager, succeeding Bob Melvin, who left the team to become the San Francisco Giants' manager.

Shildt worked for the Padres for the past two seasons in a consultant role after managing the St. Louis Cardinals to a 252-199 record from midway through the 2018 season through 2021 and postseason berths in each of his three full seasons.

While the Dodgers were adding to their payroll during the offseason, the Padres were shedding salary.

They traded outfielder Juan Soto, an all-star each of the past three seasons, and two-time Gold Glove winning outfielder Trent Grisham to the New York Yankees on Dec. 6 in exchange for five players. And Blake Snell, the 2023 NL Cy Young Award winner, signed a free-agent contract Tuesday with the Giants.

The Padres acquired right-hander Dylan Cease from the Chicago White Sox last Thursday in exchange for four players.  

The Dodgers' other big-money signee, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, is set to make his debut Thursday in the second and final game of the Seoul Series. The Dodgers signed the Japanese right-hander Dec. 27 to a 12-year, $325 million contract, the largest deal for a pitcher in terms of years and value in MLB history.

South Korea is the fourth foreign country in which the Dodgers have played a regular-season game. They played their first regular-season game outside the United States on May 27, 1969, defeating the Montreal Expos, 5-3. They have also played in Mexico and Australia.

Since moving to Los Angeles following the 1957 season, the Dodgers have played exhibition games in Japan, China and Taiwan. When they were based in Brooklyn, the Dodgers played spring training games in the Dominican Republic and Cuba and made a postseason tour of Japan in 1956.

The Dodgers will play in Southern California for the first time in 2024 on Sunday at Dodger Stadium to begin the three-game exhibition Freeway Series against the Angels. They will play their regular-season home opener March 28 against the St. Louis Cardinals.