Five months removed from one storybook ending, the Dodgers are already penning another Hollywood-worthy script.
It started last week in Japan, when the defending World Series champions were fervently welcomed on the other side of the world. It continued into this weekend’s opening homestand; one that featured a sentimental banner-raising celebration at Dodger Stadium on Thursday, then an emotional championship ring ceremony before first pitch on Friday.
Amid that backdrop, the Dodgers might have been forgiven for struggling with an early-season hangover. Like countless champions before them, it would have been no surprise for their title defense to begin with a slow first step.
But instead, these Dodgers have embraced all the pomp, absorbed all the circumstance, and put their own triumphant stamp on the season’s opening act.
For the first time since 1981, they’re off to a perfect 4-0 start.
And on Friday — in an 8-5 walk-off win over the Detroit Tigers that included a five-run rally, and walk-off Mookie Betts home run in the bottom of the 10th inning — they even started to rekindle some of last year’s championship magic.
“By far, [this is] the best opening week I’ve ever experienced,” manager Dave Roberts said.
“Kind of feels like we’re just picking up a little bit where we left off last year,” echoed third baseman Max Muncy. “There’s still a lot of fight in this team.”
Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts, far right, celebrates with teammates after hitting a three-run home run in the 10th inning against the Tigers on Friday.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Friday night was not always destined to end so spectacularly.
Early on, the Dodgers generated little against Tigers starter, and their own 2024 postseason hero, Jack Flaherty. Not until a two-run home run from Freddie Freeman in the sixth inning did they manage to score against Flaherty, one of the few core pieces from last year’s roster playing elsewhere.
Later, the Dodgers squandered the opportunity for a more rudimentary win. Newly signed reliever Tanner Scott blew a save in the ninth, and needed his defense to throw out another runner at the plate simply to force extras. In the 10th, the Tigers quickly surged to a 5-3 lead, when Dillon Dingler’s two-run, two-out triple landed just beyond a diving effort from Michael Conforto in left field.
But in a week that has been so dedicated to honoring the Dodgers’ 2024 success — when their World Series trek included a litany of injuries, a shorthanded roster and near-elimination at the start of the playoffs — this year’s team orchestrated its own resilient answer for the first time.
“It’s kind of a hallmark of our ballclub,” Roberts said. “We just don’t quit.”
“We’re kind of carrying that over a little bit from last year,” Muncy added. “You can have all the talent in the world, but if you don’t have that gel in the clubhouse, then it’s not gonna work.”
In the bottom of the 10th, Conforto cut the deficit in half with a leadoff double, scoring the automatic runner from second. Will Smith came off the bench and slapped an RBI single through the infield, tying the score at 5-5.
Shohei Ohtani kept the rally going, lining a base hit to right to put two runners aboard.
Then, just as he had two innings earlier, when he broke a 2-2 tie with a home run to left, Betts came to the plate and delivered again, whacking a no-doubt, game-winning, stadium-shaking, three-run blast.
Mookie Betts celebrates after hitting a walk-off home run to left field in the Dodgers’ 8-5 win over the Tigers on Friday night.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
“I just couldn’t have scripted it any better,” Roberts said. “It’s huge, especially given all that we’ve taken on in this last, call it, 10 days.”
No one’s last 10 days, of course, have been as wild as what Betts has experienced.
In Tokyo, he was unable to play after losing more than 15 pounds while battling a stomach virus. Up until Tuesday, it was unclear if the 32-year-old veteran, who is also embarking on a position change back to shortstop, would be available at all for this weekend’s series.
His first home run Friday was so surprising to his teammates — given he has been playing this week at only about 165 pounds, well below an already normally undersized stature to begin with — that Muncy said they joked that it “was probably the best bulk that he’s got right now,” noting how it barely clear the fence in left field.
Alas, when Betts came up in the 10th, he worked an eight-pitch at-bat before jumping on a changeup below the zone. The ball rocketed off his bat at 97 mph. Even on a brisk night at Chavez Ravine, it landed several rows deep into left-field pavilion.
“He one-upped us, so we were all wrong on that one,” Muncy conceded with a laugh.
“That was not on my bingo card,” Roberts echoed in amazement. “He just does some special things … He won a ballgame for us tonight.”
As Betts rounded the bases, he broke into an animated celebration that felt right out of last October’s highlight reel.
Part of the reaction, he explained later, was personal exaltation.
“Just the fight that I’ve been through, the ups and downs, the nights where I’m just crying because I’m sick, my wife there kind of holding me,” he recalled of his two-week ordeal, “that’s where that emotion comes from.”
But the rest of the emotion, he added, was simply “winning for the boys.”
Such sentiments are what helped carry the Dodgers last fall — a key reason why, for roughly 30 minutes before first pitch Friday, every 2024 team member in the building other than Flaherty (who will get his ring Saturday) was called to a makeshift stage to receive their 14-karat, 300-diamond piece of jeweled history.
“It’s my favorite one,” said Betts, the only active position player in MLB with three World Series championships. “Hopefully I can get some more and we’ll be able to compare.”
To that end, the Dodgers are already well on their way, giving early validation to their status as World Series favorites with the franchise’s best four-game start in 44 years.
“It’s a great thing to be a Dodger, a lot of cool things happen,” veteran catcher Austin Barnes said. “Play a lot of cool games. Go to Tokyo. Get some rings. Opening day. They do things right here. … So yeah, it’s been a great little week. But gotta keep going.”
