SAN DIEGO -- Max Scherzer shrugged off taking a comebacker off his calf and got out of the only inning in which the San Diego Padres threatened.

Scherzer struck out nine in seven shutout innings and Brian Dozier hit a two-run home run for his 1,000th career hit to lead the Washington Nationals to a 4-1 victory Saturday night.

"I've been hit in the calf before. I know it (stinks) and you've got to see if it's going to tighten up on you," Scherzer said. "I felt like I could still go back out there and pitch and still get through it even though it didn't feel good to run but I was able to still pitch.

"That's when you just get rid of all the excuses of why you might fail and just come up with reasons why you want to win. Just continue to make pitches and execute pitches the way you need to."

Scherzer (4-5) allowed six hits and issued only one walk, an intentional pass.

He got into trouble in only the second inning. Eric Hosmer and Franmil Reyes reached on singles before rookie Josh Naylor hit a ball off Scherzer. The runners advanced as Scherzer recovered the ball and threw out Naylor.

Hosmer broke for home on Ian Kinsler's grounder to third and was caught in a rundown. Rookie Austin Allen was intentionally walked to load the base and Lauer struck out to end the inning.

"They've got a lot of threats," Scherzer said. "You don't make the right pitch, they can take you deep. They've got some good power hitters. I was able to avoid a big inning. I knew coming into this game it was going to be a challenge and turned out to be a little different challenge."

Manager Dave Martinez said Scherzer staying in the game "doesn't surprise me a bit. He got hit pretty hard and he was sore but he wanted to pitch. Went out there and gave us what we needed to get. That's just who Max Scherzer is.

"He's going to be stiff tomorrow I'm sure, but we've got an extra day and we'll see how it plays out."

Said Padres manager Andy Green: "He's good. We know that. That inning where we had second and third; first and second and he takes a ball off his calf and he keeps us from scoring there. We put a good swing on him with Kinsler. Sometimes you struggle to find a run against a guy like that.

"Wasn't necessarily as electric of a fastball as you see from him from time to time. Pretty obviously he was feeling that ball off his calf a little bit but he pitched well," Green said.

Sean Doolittle got the final out for his 14th save after rookie Austin Allen hit a two-out RBI single.

Dozier, who signed with the Nationals as a free agent in January, homered to left off Eric Lauer in fourth, his 10th. Howie Kendrick was aboard on a leadoff walk.

"I think it's pretty cool but I don't really put too much emphasis in records and all that kind of stuff," Dozier said. "I think it's cool playing a while. More importantly a big win coming off of last night. We let one slip away and bounced back and to do what we did tonight is pretty good."

Kendrick and Anthony Rendon added RBI singles off Eric Lauer for the Nationals, who lost the first two games of this series by identical 5-4 scores.

Lauer (5-5) had won three straight starts coming in. He allowed four runs, three earned, on seven hits in seven innings and struck out five.

DRAFT PICK

The Padres' first-round draft pick, SS C.J. Abrams of Blessed Trinity High in Roswell, Georgia, agreed to a $5.2 million bonus. He and three other draft picks threw ceremonial first pitches.

TRAINER'S ROOM

Nationals: RHP Trevor Rosenthal returned from a rehab assignment and was reinstated from the 10-day IL. RHP Kyle McGowin was optioned to Triple-A Fresno to make room on the roster.

Padres: C Austin Hedges was a late scratch with a sprained left ankle. Green said he stepped on a ball in the dugout after batting practice. ... Rookie SS Fernando Tatis was rested after having two big games in his return from the injured list. He made the last out as a pinch-hitter. ... RHP Adam Warren was placed on the 10-day IL with a strained right forearm strain and RHP Gerardo Reyes was recalled from Triple-A El Paso. INF Jose Pirela was reinstated from the IL and optioned to El Paso.

UP NEXT

Nationals: RHP Stephen Strasburg (5-3, 3.19) is scheduled to start the series finale against his hometown team. He is 3-1 with a 3.12 ERA in four career starts in San Diego. He played at San Diego State under the late Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn.

Padres: RHP Luis Perdomo (1-0, 4.08) is scheduled to be the starter in a "bullpen game" Sunday.

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ARLINGTON, Texas -- Adrian Beltre got one more tap on the top of the head from Elvis Andrus, and a visit by the person who brought the four-time All-Star third baseman up to the major leagues as a teenager.

The Rangers retired Beltre's No. 29 jersey on Saturday night after he spent the last eight of his 21 major league seasons in Texas.

Among the special guests on the field was Hall of Fame manager Tommy Lasorda, who was the interim general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers when Beltre was first called up by them in 1998 for his big league debut at age 19 -- and never went back down.

Lasorda was the team's manager when he first went to the Dominican Republic to see Beltre, who was only 15 when he first signed with the Dodgers as an amateur free agent in July 1994. Lasorda said he talked to Beltre many times over the years and told him he had "all of the ability in the world, just don't mess it up."

Beltre went on to collect 3,166 career hits, the most by a foreign-born player, and 477 homers. He was a .286 hitter with 1,707 RBIs in 2,933 career games. The five-time Gold Glove winner played 2,759 games at third base -- only Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson had more.

After Beltre had slipped on a gift from his former teammates that had been presented by Andrus -- a plush long blue robe with Beltre's name and number on the back -- the Rangers' shortstop made another playful tap on the head before running away. Beltre doesn't like being touched there, and Andrus was usually the prime instigator after Beltre homered or had other big hits for Texas.

Beltre's jersey is the fourth retired by the Rangers, plus the No. 42 retired by MLB in 1997 to honor Jackie Robinson.

Two years ago, just a couple of weeks after Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez was inducted into the Hall of Fame, Texas retired the No. 7 worn by the perennial All-Star catcher. The other numbers retired by the Rangers are the No. 26 of the late Johnny Oates, the manager who led them to their first three AL West titles over a four-year span in the late 1990s, and the No. 34 of Nolan Ryan.

Among several video messages played during the ceremony were from Hall of Fame third basemen George Brett, Mike Schmidt and Chipper Jones. All of them told Beltre they would see him in Cooperstown when he becomes eligible for election in 2024.

"You had more fun than anybody I saw play the game of baseball," Brett said.

"Five years from now you will be first ballot ... can't wait to sit behind you when you're making your speech," Schmidt said.

Beltre played for the Dodgers until 2004, and then played for the Seattle Mariners (2005-09) and Boston Red Sox (2010) before he joined the Rangers on a $96 million, six-year free-agent deal in 2011. He appeared in his only World Series in his first season with Texas.

The ceremony was held between games of a day-night doubleheader against the Oakland Athletics.

"The way he played the game and how he enjoyed it, that's probably what I remembered most, other than thorns he's stuck in my side during games," said A's manager Bob Melvin, who watched the ceremony from the visitors dugout. "He's just such a great personality for the game. We'll all miss him."

The umpires working the A's series include crew chief Gerry Davis, who two years ago ejected Beltre from a home game the same week the Rangers third baseman was closing in on his 3,000th career hit. When Davis motioned for him to get closer to the on-deck circle, Beltre instead dragged the large plastic mat marking the circle closer to him and got tossed.

Shohei Ohtani gave Yusei Kikuchi a rude welcome Saturday, hitting a home run and a single off of the Seattle Mariners rookie in the first MLB matchup between the Japanese stars.

With about 80 members of the Japanese media looking on at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California, Ohtani beat out an infield single in the first inning, then grounded out to first in the second.

In the fourth inning, Ohtani became the third consecutive Angels batter to take Kikuchi deep. In a span of four pitches, Tommy La Stella and Mike Trout started the inning with back-to-back homers before Ohtani hit the first offering he saw over the left-center-field fence.

The Angels hadn't hit three consecutive homers since September 2016, also against Seattle. A Japanese-born batter hadn't homered off a Japanese-born pitcher in the majors since July 8, 2009, when Kosuke Fukudome connected off Kenshin Kawakami.

"I was trying to treat it like a normal game and a normal at-bat, but there was something special about it,'' Ohtani said through an interpreter. "I mean, we went to the same high school. I'm glad that we got the results we wanted, though.''

Ohtani celebrated with obvious glee, even flexing his muscles in the dugout -- although he was only mimicking a previous gesture by teammate Kole Calhoun, he said.

"That's the most excited I've seen him on a homer,'' Trout said. "I think I would be, too, if I went to the same high school. I'd be excited, too. I'd never seen him like that. It was pretty cool.''

Kikuchi lasted three more batters before being pulled. Ohtani kept up his hot hitting against reliever Tayler Scott, adding an RBI double in the fifth inning and finished 3-for-5 in the Angels' 12-3 win.

Ohtani, 24, and Kikuchi, 27, attended Hanamaki Higashi High School in Japan but missed each other by a year. They faced off five times in Japan's top league before Ohtani left to begin the next chapter in his revolutionary two-way career.

Although they haven't been able to meet up for dinner yet this year, they've stayed in touch since Kikuchi arrived in the majors one season after Ohtani, the 2018 AL Rookie of the Year.

"I'm very proud of the fact that we faced each other on the highest level in baseball,'' Ohtani said. "Hopefully we get to do it a lot more.''

Kikuchi's ERA is up to 4.99 after he took his third consecutive loss while giving up nine hits and six earned runs to the Angels, who have scored 16 earned runs against him over three starts.

"They hit three home runs off me today, so I didn't like what happened, including Ohtani,'' Kikuchi said through an interpreter. "But I want to make sure next time I go out there and pitch against the Angels, I want to shut them down and do it for the team.''

"He's going to be OK,'' Seattle manager Scott Servais said of Kikuchi. "On the homers, he just didn't get the ball where he wanted to. The ball to Ohtani was just a curveball that stayed up. It happens.''

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

CLEVELAND -- Sometimes, karma's a busted lip.

Barely a week after admonishing one of his teammates for slamming away a helmet in anger, a bloodied Brett Gardner sustained a unique injury Saturday when his own helmet-tossing episode went awry.

Instead of dropping innocently to the floor after it was rifled against a wall in the New York Yankees' dugout, Gardner's helmet bounced violently back to him, unexpectedly striking him in the mouth.

Six stitches, a sizeable clot and a fat bottom lip later, the outfielder sheepishly admitted to reporters that his frustrations at the plate got the better of him.

He said he learned a lesson, too: "I won't throw my helmet again."

How badly did it hurt?

"Not as bad as getting the stitches put in," Gardner said.

It was in the top of the sixth inning of the Yankees' 8-4 loss to the Cleveland Indians when Progressive Field was jolted by a loud boom along the ballpark's first-base side. At first, it sounded like something ricocheted hard off the facing of a stadium deck or a box-section window.

Something ricocheted, all right. And right into Gardner's face.

"[It was] just frustration building up," said Gardner, who is in the middle of an 0-for-19 stretch hitting.

Gardner's most recent hit was five games ago, in a victory over the rival Boston Red Sox. It came at the end of a five-game hitting streak, and was part of a stretch in which Gardner had hits in 11 of 12 games.

"Just got to keep plugging away with it, and making sure when you do get a pitch, when you do get a good fastball to hit, you've got to take advantage of those situations," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said of Gardner's recent struggles.

Just before the sixth-inning tantrum, Cleveland had broken a 2-2 tie and taken a two-run lead thanks to a double and an Oscar Mercado home run in the bottom of the fifth. That added to the frustration as Gardner wanted to do something to help get his team back into the game.

As the Yankees' leadoff hitter the next half-inning, he swung hard at a 91.9 mph fastball right down the middle of the plate. The line drive traveled deep into the right-center gap -- 376 feet away. At first glance, it looked as though it had a chance to fly over the wall.

But Cleveland's right fielder, Jordan Luplow stalked the fly ball and snagged it just as he crashed into the fence.

"To hit a ball like that and it's an out, yeah, just frustrated," Gardner said. "I told Boone if I hadn't done it [thrown the helmet] then, I would've done it after my next at-bat. Either way."

Gardner grounded out sharply to second base in the eighth inning, capping the 0-for-19 stretch he's scuffling through.

Although typically mild-mannered away from the field, Gardner acknowledged to reporters that he can "get pretty angry often" on it. A few seasons ago at Minnesota, he got upset and threw his helmet.

"It came back and hit me in the head and gave me a big goose egg," Gardner said.

This time, the helmet-throwing landed Gardner in the trainer's room, where a half-hour after the game, he was getting six stitches -- without numbing fluid -- from the inside of his bottom lip all the way out. The stitches go right down the middle of his lip. They made it tough to speak, and might affect the way he eats and drinks. Thankfully, he said, there were no cameras in the clubhouse when he spoke.

Gardner has had stitches in his lip before from a rare -- yet more common -- baseball injury. During spring training several seasons ago, he fouled a ball off the plate, and it bounced up and hit him in the mouth. Those five stitches went about a quarter-inch to the left of where his current ones are.

AW editor explains the shift from Athletics Weekly to ‘AW’ this month

Most readers call this magazine ‘AW’. It is an affectionate little acronym that has been used for decades and for some reason I particularly like it when some people go as far as to refer to it as ‘The AW’.

So it seems to make sense for us to scrap the slightly long-winded ‘Athletics Weekly’ and instead, from June 20, start formally using the name that everyone has used for years anyway.

Acronyms and initialisms are hardly uncommon. My brother, for example, works at GQ – a magazine formerly known as Gentleman’s Quarterly.

Athletics is especially full of such brevities. From PB (or PR if you’re American) to DNS, DNF and DQ, to SP, JT and TJ, to WR and the IAAF, the list is endless. Even the shoe company, ASICS, stands for the Latin anima sana in corpore sano (a sound mind in a sound body).

The first time ‘KJT’ graced our cover, she was known as Katarina Thompson. Similarly, Mark Lewis-Francis became known as ‘MLF’ during his career. Harry Aikines-Aryeetey is usually just called Harry ‘AA’.

Not many readers realise this magazine started off as a monthly publication in 1945 called ‘Athletics’. Yet such was the appetite for athletics info, it turned weekly in 1950 and soon after, on September 30 that year, the ‘AW’ nickname was born when John Partlett, the European and Empire Games 800m champion, featured in the inaugural ‘AW Questionnaire’ – an interview column that ran for many years.

Today AW is far more than a weekly magazine. Through our website, social media channels and print magazine, we are a 24/7 source of news, results, reports, features, opinion, statistics, photos and videos.

Some wonder how we survive in the internet era. The answer is we have become part of the internet era. From our busy and trusted Twitter feed and website through to growing Instagram and YouTube channels, ‘AW’ is the No.1 go-to place if you want a quick athletics fix online.

Then, if your appetite isn’t sated and you still want more, the print magazine (or digital equivalent, which was launched 12 years ago) is the complete package with comprehensive, independent and unrivalled coverage of the No.1 Olympic sport.

British number one Johanna Konta has pulled out of the Nottingham Open, with the main draw due to start on Monday.

The 28-year-old announced her decision on social media, a day after she was defeated in her first ever French Open semi-final, by Czech teenager Marketa Vondrousova.

"It's one of my favourite events and the courts are wonderful," said Konta.

"I certainly look forward to seeing all the fantastic fans back there again next year."

Konta has appeared in the past two Nottingham Open finals, and last year was defeated by new French Open champion Ashleigh Barty.

The competition is one of the first events of the grass-court season, which culminates with Wimbledon, a tournament that begins on 1 July this year.