Dodgers home runs beat Yomiuri in first Japan exhibition

Conforto, Ohtani, Teoscar all go deep to support 8-pitcher effort in LA bullpen game at the Tokyo Dome.

Three Dodgers homered in the third inning and that was enough to win their exhibition game 5-1 over the Yomiuri Giants on Saturday at the Tokyo Dome in Japan.

Shohei Ohtani was the middle man of the three Dodgers who homered in the five-run third inning, followed later in the frame by Teoscar Hernández going deep. But it was Michael Conforto who got the ball started, as his solo home run to open the inning was the Dodgers’ first hit of the game.

A call to arms

Dave Roberts told reporters in Tokyo before the game that he wanted to get as many of the main relief pitchers into Saturday’s game so they’d all have two days off prior to the two regular season games against the Cubs.

“We don’t know how those games are going to play,” Roberts said, “and also to have them ready and how we can use them any way we want.”

The fourth through eighth innings were covered, in order, by Anthony Banda, Alex Vesia, Kirby Yates, Blake Treinen, and Tanner Scott. Yates allowed a run on two hits and a walk, the only run allowed by Dodgers pitchers in the game.

Ben Casparius, who also figures to open the season in the bullpen, pitched a scoreless second inning. Left-hander Jack Dreyer pitched a perfect ninth with two strikeouts, snapping the string of six Dodgers relievers with exactly one strikeout.

Notes

Justin Wrobleski continued his impressive spring, striking out three batters in two perfect innings as the first pitcher of Saturday’s bullpen game. Wrobleski allowed two runs in his first inning of work in the Cactus League and has allowed nothing since. Between Arizona and Japan, Wrobleski has a 1.54 ERA with only one walk and a 30-percent strikeout rate in 11⅓ innings.

Max Muncy, Conforto, Miguel Rojas, and Andy Pages all played the entire game on Saturday, while the other regulars all batted three times. Roberts said before the game he would likely have a different group of players play the whole game in the second exhibition contest. With Mookie Betts out a few days with an illness, the Dodgers have 14 position players available for these two exhibitions, and all were used in this one.

Banda’s conversation about Pokémon with Kirsten Watson during the fifth inning on the SportsNet LA broadcast was enthralling:

Up next

One more exhibition game to go for the Dodgers, facing the Hanshin Tigers on Sunday afternoon in Tokyo (Saturday 8 p.m. PT, SportsNet LA). Blake Snell will start and Tyler Glasnow will piggyback after him.