The 2025 Dodgers appeared loads just like the 2024 Dodgers on Thursday.
Simply with gold lettering adorning their World Sequence championship jerseys.
In a 5-4 win over the Detroit Tigers of their residence opener, this yr’s Dodgers produced all the identical hallmarks of final season’s title-winning membership.
Well timed offense, epitomized by Teoscar Hernández’s go-ahead, three-run residence run within the fifth inning off reigning American League Cy Younger Award winner Tarik Skubal, and Shohei Ohtani’s solo blast within the seventh for a key insurance coverage run.
Beginning pitching that was simply adequate, with two-time Cy Younger winner Blake Snell limiting harm in a five-inning, two-run debut with the crew.
And efficient aid from the bullpen, which nursed a slender result in the end line for a home-opening win and 3-0 begin to the Dodgers’ championship protection.
Thursday was at all times going to be about 2024 greater than 2025.
Over a 30-minute pregame ceremony, the Dodgers raised a “2024 World Champions” banner up the center-field flagpole, unveiled a brand new “2024” signal subsequent to their different seven World Sequence plaques in proper discipline, and have been delivered the Commissioner’s Trophy by Ice Dice — by way of a Dodger blue Chevrolet Bel-Air the hip-hop artist drove throughout the warning observe.
To commemorate their title, the Dodgers additionally wore particular gold-trimmed jerseys and caps, simply as they’ll once more Friday when they’re introduced their World Sequence rings.
And if all that wasn’t sufficient, the ceremonial first pitch got here with a becoming twist. Kirk Gibson, the walk-off hero of the membership’s 1988 World Sequence, took the mound to throw the ball. Freddie Freeman, the walk-off hero of final yr’s Fall Basic towards the New York Yankees, squatted behind the plate to catch it.
The accompanying roar from the early arriving Dodger Stadium crowd wasn’t fairly to the extent of both man’s iconic October residence run. However for a hazy afternoon in late March, it was deafening nonetheless.
The Dodgers’ aim is to be again within the World Sequence once more, aiming to turn out to be Main League Baseball’s first repeat champion — and undisputed dynasty — because the New York Yankees of 1998 to 2000.
However first they must sort out one other grueling 162-game schedule. To date, they’re off to an unblemished begin.
After sweeping their season-opening sequence towards the Chicago Cubs in Tokyo final week, the Dodgers confronted a brand new activity again on residence soil towards Skubal, the 28-year-old left-hander who rolled to final yr’s Cy Younger with an 18-4 document and AL-leading 2.39 earned-run common.
For 4 innings the Dodgers couldn’t crack him, a second-inning residence run from Tommy Edman representing their solely scoring.
Snell, the largest star of the Dodgers’ half-billion offseason spending spree, was much less medical in his first Dodgers begin. Although all 5 hits he gave up have been singles — most of them hit softly — the $182-million star struggled to search out the strike zone, strolling 4 and placing himself below fixed stress.
Snell stranded runners at second and third within the second inning, then one other at third base within the high of the third. However with the bases loaded and two outs within the fourth, he spiked consecutive two-strike curveballs, the second bouncing all the best way to the backstop to plate a run. Within the fifth the Tigers loaded the bases once more with two singles and a stroll, establishing Manuel Margot for a sacrifice fly to middle.
It was an imperfect outing for Snell, who regardless of proudly owning two Cy Youngs nonetheless is understood for an absence of constant effectivity, having topped 130 innings simply twice in his nine-year profession.
However on this loaded Dodgers crew, his potential to restrict harm — the Tigers have been 0 for 9 towards Snell with runners in scoring place and 0 for 15 on the day — was sufficient.
Similar to within the latter levels of final season, when Hernández punctuated his bounce-back, All-Star season with a penchant for clutch hitting that continued into the playoffs, supervisor Dave Roberts bumped Hernández forward of Freeman in Thursday’s batting order, placing the right-handed-hitting slugger third towards a left-handed starter, and the left-handed-hitting Freeman fourth.
“I just like it,” Roberts stated earlier than the sport. “There’s a Teoscar tax, to get through Freddie the third time.”
Certainly, with two on and two outs within the fifth, Skubal paid it on a first-pitch fastball, leaving a 96-mph heater over the center of the plate that Hernández blasted to middle, turning a 2-1 deficit right into a 4-2 lead.
Two innings later Ohtani answered a Spencer Torkelson solo homer within the high of the seventh, the Japanese star’s second lengthy ball of the season simply three video games in.
And after Tanner Scott and Blake Treinen mixed to shut out the sport within the eighth and ninth innings, respectively, Dodger Stadium erupted in the identical method it did so usually final fall, celebrating a home-opening victory from a membership starting one other lengthy march towards World Sequence glory.
