LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Dodgers’ victory tour came home Thursday. The Dodgers rolled out a blue carpet, wore accents of gold on their uniforms and boasted a $400 million payroll with expectations of a dynasty. The reigning World Series champions welcomed the Detroit Tigers and broke through against the reigning American League Cy Young winner, kicking off a celebratory weekend with a 5-4 victory.
The Dodgers’ roster continues to be a stress test and a measuring stick. They showed off their shiny new toy, Blake Snell, who earned a victory in his first start off a nine-figure contract. They flexed the depth of their lineup by puncturing Tarik Skubal’s armor the third time through the order when Teoscar Hernández launched a first-pitch fastball into the center-field seats for a go-ahead three-run home run. Their pitching staff held the Tigers hitless in 15 at-bats with runners in scoring position, with Blake Treinen recording the save.
More than anything, they kept the party rolling.
Dodger Stadium is now the “epicenter of baseball,” manager Dave Roberts has repeatedly said this spring. It’s hardly ever felt truer. A Tinseltown-worthy cinematic trailer proclaimed that “last year’s Hollywood blockbuster deserves a sequel.”
The 2024 Dodgers’ unofficial anthem, “Not Like Us,” echoed throughout the park as the starting lineups were introduced. Ice Cube returned in a Dodger blue Chevy Bel Air and took a literal victory lap around the outfield as he delivered the World Series trophy (Roberts did not show off his dance moves this time around). Members of ownership unveiled a massive pennant that hung beyond center field. Members of the Pasadena and Los Angeles fire departments unveiled a sign commemorating the Dodgers’ eighth title.
Freddie Freeman, the reigning World Series MVP, caught the first pitch from 1988 hero Kirk Gibson. The crowd roared for them both.
“I thought the ceremony was fantastic,” Roberts said. “I thought it was a beautiful day, acknowledging what we accomplished in 2024. I thought the fans were really into it. … We nailed it.”
The coronation returned here after celebrating last October at Yankee Stadium and embracing the global stage this month in the Tokyo Dome. The Dodgers didn’t have a celebration after their 2020 title; instead they received their championship rings in a partially filled ballpark due to COVID-19 restrictions. Now, in front of a sold-out crowd of 53,595, and brimming with talk of dominating the sport for the next decade, they could celebrate.
“Our fan base has waited a long time for this kind of culmination,” Roberts said.
“This feeling right now is unbeatable for everybody,” infielder Miguel Rojas said.
“It’s a lot of emotions,” Hernández said.
Because of the Tokyo scheduling, the Dodgers got a two-win head start on the rest of the sport before Opening Day. The Dodgers have an advantage they’ve sought to press in the wake of their second championship in five seasons. There doesn’t seem to be any letup.
They’ve traveled like Globetrotters to Japan and back and won all three games to start their title defense.
“It just doesn’t affect our focus on winning a baseball game,” Roberts said.
Snell’s first start after signing a five-year, $182 million deal this winter represented a mixed bag. He didn’t lack for swing-and-miss stuff, as the Tigers whiffed 14 times on 92 pitches, but he managed just two strikeouts. The Tigers never squared him up, but he issued four walks to create his own trouble. He bounced a two-strike, two-out, bases-loaded curveball to Ryan Kreidler to allow his first run.
“I think my only 1-2-3 inning was the first inning,” Snell said. “After that, it was a lot of fighting to get outs.”
Still, he allowed just two runs total over five innings despite having runners in scoring position in all but the first inning.
“That’s kind of who he is, bearing down with guys in scoring position,” Roberts said.
The Dodgers played without Kiké Hernández, who was in line to start at second base. He came up feeling ill and vomiting in the hours before the home opener. The Dodgers didn’t miss a beat behind a lineup poised to wear out pitching staffs throughout the summer. Even Skubal, who has ascended among the top aces in the sport, was not immune. When Roberts opted to move Teoscar Hernández to the third spot, after Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts and wedged ahead of a third former MVP in Freeman, he called it a byproduct of a “Teoscar tax.”
A Tommy Edman solo home run marked the only damage against Skubal through four innings before Betts’ two-out walk in the fifth brought Hernández to the plate with two on.
Skubal had bullied the Dodgers with his fastballs all afternoon. The ones he left over the plate that had been squared up all wound up in opposing gloves. But when Skubal’s 75th pitch, a 97 mph fastball, drifted over the heart of the plate, Hernández clubbed it into the center-field seats to make it 4-2.
“He doesn’t leave many (fastballs) in the middle of the plate,” Hernández said. “Today I got one. I think I got lucky on that one. Obviously I was ready for it. I just hit it out.”
Two innings later, with Skubal out of the game, Ohtani swatted a 96 mph sinker into the left-field seats to keep the festivities going and provide a 5-3 lead for a bullpen that allowed Detroit to hang around until Treinen got Colt Keith to pop out with two on to end the night.
It was a familiar formula. Thursday was a reminder not only of what the Dodgers accomplished a year ago but of what they can still do to have another celebration like this next spring.
“Playing in front of these fans, and in this circumstance, it did make me want to win (and be able to motivate myself to win another championship,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton.
(Top photo of the Teoscar Hernández home run celebration: Harry How / Getty Images)
