Trio shines as Dodgers cruise

LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani cracked a line drive to right field and sprinted past second base, confident he could leg out a triple that would thrill his new fans in his first regular-season appearance for the Los Angeles Dodgers at home. The $700 million slugger didn’t realize Mookie Betts had been stopped in front of him at third until it was too late to avoid getting caught out on the basepaths. “He can run very fast, but he’s got to understand that there’s a guy in front of him, too,” manager Dave Roberts said with a grin. There’s a guy in back of Ohtani as well when Betts, Ohtani and Freddie Freeman are atop their lineup. That trio of former league MVPs gave L.A. an enticing first look Thursday at what these loaded Dodgers hope to do to opponents all summer long. Ohtani reached base three times, Betts and Freeman homered in the third, and Los Angeles beat the St. Louis Cardinals 7-1 Thursday in the Dodger Stadium opener to a season of sky-high expectations.

BASKETBALL

› AUBURN, Ala. — Auburn men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl still isn’t happy with a call that led to the costly ejection of Chad Baker-Mazara in the opening round of the NCAA tournament, but he’s urging fans to lay off his starting guard on social media. Baker-Mazara threw an elbow at Yale’s August Mahoney as the pair ran downcourt just three minutes into the Tigers’ 78-76 loss to the Bulldogs last week. Baker-Mazara was called for a Flagrant 2 foul that Pearl believes could easily have been a Flagrant 1 that wouldn’t have meant an ejection. “What a really difficult way to learn from that mistake,” Pearl said Thursday. “At the same time, I would also like to remind our fans and anybody listening that Chad owned up to that mistake. And he’s apologized for that mistake.”