Was it AI? A magic trick? No, just literally the toughest break imaginable for the San Diego Padres.
A groundball by the Dodgers’ Gavin Lux disappeared into Jake Cronenworth‘s first baseman’s mitt ... and came out the other side, trickling into right field while Teoscar Hernández scored the go-ahead run.
A potential inning-ending double play instead became an error, the pivotal at-bat in a four-run eighth inning that keyed the Dodgers’ 5-2 victory in the regular-season opener at the Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul.
Cronenworth’s mitt broke, the webbing unfathomably untied.