Dodgers to Set Sail on 2025 Season. Again.
It's time for Chris Taylor to exit, ideally Wednesday.
The Dodgers crossed the Pacific, took care of business — big bucks business — and swept their little two-game series with the Cubs at Tokyo. Without three of their four MVPs, in Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Clayton Kershaw. The fourth MVP (or Beatle, depending on your perspective), Shohei Ohtani created the stir you’d expect him to. With both his presence and his bat, homering as if on cue, in game two.
Then the Boys in Blue crossed the Pacific, took care baseball business, and won the annual Freeway Series at Los Angeles and Anaheim, two games to one. The Angels don’t present much of challenge, but the Cubs did. And so will the visitors in the team’s first homestand of the season.
Pitching matchups are sketchy at this time of the year, but the opener is scheduled to feature a Cy Young on each side; with two-time winner Blake Snell versus Detroit’s Tarik Skubal Thursday at 4:10 p.m. The Tigers are undecided about Friday and Saturday opposite Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki, respectively. While I presume Jack Flaherty will take the ball in one of the available dates, I’m confident we’ll see him get his World Series along with the remaining 2024 Dodgers in the same ceremony before Friday’s 6:10 p.m. first pitch. I was at the 1982 home opener in which Reggie Smith received his 1981 World Series ring along the first base line while the remaining 1981 L.A. players got theirs along the third. First class all the way.
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