MLB Seoul Series live updates: Dodgers vs. Padres lineup news, Ohtani’s debut and starting pitcher matchup

SEOUL — One day in the spring of 2020, shortly before the Korea Baseball Organization emerged as a focal point of a pandemic-impacted sports world, Seoul resident Daniel Kim received a direct message on Twitter. It was from Karl Ravech and Boog Sciambi, two ESPN broadcasters who introduced themselves — Kim, a KBO analyst and former South Korea scout for major-league teams, had met Sciambi but not Ravech — and explained they were looking for someone to assist with a novel undertaking. What they proposed sounded intriguing, ambitious and filled with unknowns. Still, Kim readily agreed to help.

“Plus,” Kim said recently, “I had nothing else to do. I was just like everybody else.”

About a week later, Kim found himself on American national television, having gone from watching Netflix on his couch to remotely joining ESPN’s broadcast of Opening Day in the KBO. For Kim, it was a couple of innings of baseball talk on an unexpected platform. For Ravech, calling play-by-play from his home in Avon, Conn., and ESPN analyst Eduardo Perez, providing color commentary from his garage in Miami, it was an enterprising first step in bringing a semblance of normalcy to live sports viewers around the globe.

Kim proved a hit with the Worldwide Leader. Over the next several months, as ESPN televised six KBO games per week, Kim logged close to 90 appearances alongside a rotating crew that included Ravech, Perez, Sciambi, Jessica Mendoza and Kyle Peterson. Amid their long-distance immersion into the culture and customs of Korean baseball, Kim’s new colleagues described him as both a frequent guest and a dependable tour guide.

“Whether he was the guy that we were talking to directly or he was the one steering us in the direction of other people, he was absolutely integral to all of it,” Ravech said. “He was, no question, the most familiar face, and in a lot of ways people are looking for credibility. He was the one who provided it.”

“Daniel was probably the all-around MVP of the KBO coverage,” said Phil Orlins, ESPN’s vice president of production.

Wednesday night in Seoul (6 am Eastern Time Wednesday in the United States), the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres will open the 2024 season with the first of two games at Gocheok Sky Dome. Major League Baseball is finally playing its first regular-season contests in South Korea because growing the sport internationally has become a renewed focus in recent years; because Shohei Ohtani and Ha-Seong Kim have redefined the possibilities for Asian ballplayers; because Padres advisor and former Dodgers pitcher Chan Ho Park three decades ago became the first Korean-born player in the big leagues; and perhaps also because, just four years ago, a cross-Pacific bond sprouted out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Who knew when we started at ESPN that it would take us to Seoul, South Korea?” said Ravech, who will team with Perez, his Sunday Night Baseball partner, to call the Dodgers-Padres series on site. “I think part of that is the connection we had to the KBO.”

That bridge was built on the strength of modern technology and with the considerable help of Kim, who will reunite with Ravech and Perez as ESPN’s sideline reporter for the series. For Ravech and Perez, the games at Gocheok Sky Dome will be a long-awaited opportunity to experience live, fan-attended baseball on Korean soil. For Kim, it will be the culmination of an unlikely journey that spans two continents and 13 time zones.

Read the full story here.