San Diego: So much joy and so much agony in one game.
Japanese pitcher Kenta Maeda homered in the second at-bat of his major league debut with the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday and beat the Padres 7-0, making San Diego the first team in major league history to be shut out in their first three games.
“I’m just very happy that I got a ‘W’ in my major league debut,” Maeda said through a translator.
There wasn’t anything for the Padres to celebrate. They were outscored 25-0 in the opening three games by their biggest rivals and set MLB marks for futility.
“There is still perspective here, not to be lost,” Padres rookie manager Andy Green said. “We still do have 159 games left and we will score runs this year. And we will win series this year.”
The Padres were outscored 25-0 while setting an MLB mark with 27 straight scoreless innings to open a season. The old mark was 26 by the 1943 St. Louis Browns, according to STATS.
The Dodgers joined the 1963 Cardinals in winning their first three games by shutouts. Clayton Kershaw and Scott Kazmir had strong performances in the first two games before Maeda responded with six shutout innings of his own.
The right-hander signed an eight-year deal with the Dodgers in January after spending eight seasons with the Hiroshima Carp of the Japanese Central League.
The history-making Story in Phoenix was a big hit. Rookie Trevor Story hit his fourth home run of the series and made baseball history in the Colorado Rockies’ 4-3 victory over the Diamondbacks.
The 23-year-old shortstop became the first player ever in the major leagues to hit a home run in each of his first three games. Story also is the first player in baseball history to hit a home run for each of his first four hits, according to information provided to the Rockies from the Elias Sports Bureau.
“It was fun to watch him,” Rockies manager Walt Weiss said, “a young kid who has dreamt of this his whole life and shows up and is probably better than his dream was - that first game, that first series. ... It is quite a story - pun intended.”
Starlin Castro homered and drove in five runs and Mark Teixeira had four RBIs as the New York Yankees trounced Houston 16-6 for their first victory of the season.
Teixeira and Castro each hit a three-run homer. Carlos Beltran also homered and Castro finished with four of the 17 hits for the Yankees, who chased Collin McHugh (0-1) in a six-run first inning that lasted 36 minutes.
At Cleveland, the Indians edged the Red Sox 7-6. Mike Napoli homered against his former Boston teammates and Cleveland overcame David Ortiz’s second homer in his farewell season. Napoli broke a 6-6 tie in the seventh with his solo shot off Junichi Tazawa (0-1).
In other AL games, Steven Souza Jr.’s go-ahead three-run drive in the eighth lifted the Tampa Bay Rays to a 5-3 win over the Toronto Blue Jays, Robinson Cano homered twice and drove in five runs to lead the Seattle Mariners to a 9-5 comeback win over the Texas Rangers, Baltimore beat Minnesota 4-2 and Oakland beat the Chicago White Sox 2-1.
The Detroit Tigers had a 7-3 win over the Florida Marlins, and in the National League, the Cincinnati Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies 3-2 after Scott Schebler doubled with the bases loaded with one out in the ninth inning, the Milwaukee Brewers edged the San Francisco Giants 4-3, Pittsburgh had a 5-1 win over St. Louis and Washington beat Atlanta 3-1.
