The first time Dodgers fans saw Corey Seager in the dugout this week, they cheered.
The first time they saw the former Dodger shortstop on the field, however, Seager gave them no choice but to boo.
In his first game as a visiting player at Dodger Stadium — three years since he left the franchise that drafted him, where he first became an All-Star and World Series champion — Seager led the Texas Rangers to a 3-2 win, providing the decisive blow in his first game back from a hamstring injury with a three-run home run off Walker Buehler in the fifth inning.
“We missed him,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said, after Seager missed the previous five games. “It’s good to have him back.”
His old club couldn’t say the same.
The Dodgers almost salvaged the game in the ninth inning, when Jason Heyward nearly tied the score on a double with two runners aboard. But the trail runner, Andy Pages, was thrown out at home on a bang-bang play at the plate after running through a stop sign from third base coach Dino Ebel.
The Dodgers requested a challenge to see if Rangers catcher Jonah Heim was blocking the plate. But after a video review, the call was confirmed.
Game over.
Another night at Dodger Stadium, decided by the swing of Seager.
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“It sucks that he’s my buddy and he clipped me,” Buehler said of Seager, his former Dodgers teammate before the Rangers signed him for $325 million two winters ago. “But at the end of the day, people don’t just give out 300 million for no reason. He’s as good as there is in this game.”
Twenty-four hours earlier, Seager was welcomed back to Chavez Ravine with a warm reception Tuesday, getting a video tribute and extended ovation from his former fan base before the start of this week’s three-game series.
Because of a hamstring injury, however, Seager didn’t play in that game.
Only on Wednesday did Seager actually return to the lineup. And in his second at-bat, he reminded his old club of exactly what it let get away.
With the Dodgers leading by one in the fifth inning, thanks to Shohei Ohtani’s 17th home run in the first inning, Seager came to the plate with two on — one via an error by newly acquired Cavan Biggio, who started at third base — and got into a full-count battle with Buehler.
The first payoff pitch: a slider that Seager fouled off.
The next: a dead-red, down-the-middle fastball.
Seager didn’t miss.
With an explosive swing and two-handed finish — the same silhouette that defined Seager’s decorated Dodgers career — the slugger belted his go-ahead, three-run blast deep into the right-field pavilion.
“I tried to go in,” said Buehler, who gave up no other runs in a five-inning, seven-hit, two-strikeout start, “and kind of left it over the plate.”
The blast was Seager’s 13th home run of the season. It marked the 60th long ball of his career at Dodger Stadium. And, in what almost certainly was a first for the 30-year-old veteran, it triggered a reaction he’d never before received at Dodger Stadium.
Boos. Lots of them.
“I guess it kind of comes with the territory,” Seager said postgame with a shy grin. “I mean, I don’t blame them. I get it.”
The Rangers’ 3-1 lead stood until the ninth, when the Dodgers fell just short of a last-gasp comeback on Pages’ close call at the plate.
With two on and two out, Heyward lined a double into center field that easily scored Will Smith from second, and was bobbled by the Rangers’ Leody Taveras in center field.
Having started the play on first base, Pages saw the bobble, then decided to go for the tying run.
What Pages didn’t see: Ebel holding up a one-handed stop sign at third base, running right past the base coach en route to being thrown out on an impressive relay play by Rangers infielder Marcus Semien.
“As soon as I saw the center fielder misplay it a little bit, I just thought about scoring that tying run,” Pages said in Spanish. “You learn from those things. Unfortunately, those things have to happen for you to get better.”
Manager Dave Roberts said that Dodgers coaches weren’t upset with Pages, the 22-year-old rookie outfielder who has given the club much-needed production at the bottom of the lineup.
After all, it was Pages’ two-out walk that even allowed Heyward to come to the plate.
“It’s one thing to be defiant and to run through a stop sign when you see it, and there’s another thing of trying to make a play and try to be aggressive, seeing the ball in the outfield, and that’s what he did,” Roberts said, noting the Rangers still had to perfectly execute their relay play to get him. “It’s certainly not a reprimand situation. It’s just a teaching moment.”
One that also ensured Seager’s boo-inducing blast remained the decisive blow in the game.
“He certainly deserves all the applause from Dodgers fans, he helped us win a championship,” Roberts said of his former shortstop. “But he also deserved those boos after the three-run homer.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
