LOS ANGELES — They played the hits at Dodger Stadium on Thursday afternoon.
Ice Cube delivered the World Series trophy. Kirk Gibson threw out the first pitch to Freddie Freeman, “connecting the dots” as emcee Joe Davis put it, between World Series Game 1 in 1988 and World Series Game 1 in 2024. Sandy Koufax sat near the dugout, one of the last remaining reminders of golden eras past. And members of the current ownership group raised the latest championship pennant, flexing some of the same muscles they used to write all those checks that made it possible.
When the blue carpet was rolled up and put away – until Friday’s ring ceremony – the Dodgers strutted through the main event, hitting three home runs, two against the reigning American League Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal plus the obligatory big-occasion bomb from Shohei Ohtani, to beat the Detroit Tigers, 5-4, in their home opener at Dodger Stadium.
During the festive pre-game, Ice Cube rolled through the center field gate, driving a Dodger blue convertible with the World Series trophy on the front seat next to him.
There was more traffic when Blake Snell took the mound for his Dodgers debut.
Snell pitched out of trouble in the second and third innings, stranding runners at second and third in the second inning then at third again in the third inning.
In the fourth, he made more trouble for himself by walking the leadoff man then giving up a single to Manuel Margot and walking Jake Rogers to load the bases with two outs. On the way to striking out Ryan Kreidler, though, he spiked a curveball into the dirt in front of home plate and it bounced through Will Smith. That allowed the run to score from third, tying the game at 1-1.
Two singles and another walk loaded the bases with one out in the fifth inning and the Tigers took a brief lead on a sacrifice fly by Margot.
It was a familiar performance from Snell. He allowed very little hard contact and got 14 swings-and-misses. He also created trouble for himself with four walks then minimized the damage by holding the Tigers to 0 for 9 with runners in scoring position. All that work pushed his pitch count to 92 and he was done after five innings.
Skubal was not on his best Cy Young form either. Two of his mistakes left the park.
Tommy Edman hit the first home run of the season in Tokyo and matched it with the first Dodgers home run back in the United States, a solo shot in the second inning.
In the fifth, Skubal gave up a single and walked Mookie Betts, bringing up Teoscar Hernandez with two on and two out.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts moved Hernandez to third in the lineup against Skubal, dropping Freddie Freeman to fourth against the left-hander just as he had at times late last season and in the playoffs against left-handers. The idea was to force the opposing manager to make a decision – leave a left-handed starter in to face Hernandez if they wanted to also get the left-on-left matchup against Freeman.
Tigers manager A.J. Hinch wasn’t ready to pull Skubal in the fifth inning and his ace left a fat first-pitch fastball over the heart of the plate. Hernandez hammered it over the wall in left-center field for a three-run home run.
Hernandez’s blow put the Dodgers ahead to stay. But it was Ohtani’s second home run of the season, an opposite-field drive in the seventh inning, that stood as the decisive run.
More to come on this story.