April 5 (Reuters) – The Los Angeles Dodgers opened their
Major League Baseball season with a 5-3 win over the San Diego
Padres on Thursday despite flu-ridden pitcher Clayton K ershaw
leaving the game after just three innings.
Kershaw, battling stomach flu, retired the first eight
batters he faced before escaping a bases-loaded jam in the third
inning. The left-hander, who had a 21-5 record last season and
won the National League’s Cy Young award for the top pitcher,
struck out three and walked one while giving up two hits.
He also had the game’s first hit, a third-inning single.
Josh Lindblom replaced Kershaw in the fourth and pitched two
innings to take the win.
Matt Kemp homered and drove in three runs for the Dodgers as
outgoing and incoming owners Frank McCourt and former National
Basketball Association great Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson sat side by
side for the game in San Diego.
The Dodgers are being sold to a group that includes Johnson
for $2 billion.
Los Angeles scored twice on walks in the fourth inning,
added a run in the fifth and put up two more on Kemp’s two-run
homer in the eighth to pull ahead 5-1.
Padres starter Edinson Volquez took the loss, giving up
three hits and three runs while striking out seven and walking
four in five innings.
(Reporting by Gene Cherry in Salvo, North Carolina; Editing by
Peter Rutherford)
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