Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers (4-1) evened their series against the Cleveland Guardians (3-3) last night with a 4-1 victory, in what was a low-scoring contest for the majority of the evening. Shohei Ohtani made his first start of the season and looked sharp despite his command being a little shaky. He allowed just one hit through six scoreless innings, and is now up to 22.2 consecutive scoreless innings dating back to last season.
He’s pretty good at this whole two-way player thing. Anyway, tonight’s game is the rubber-match in this series, with Yoshinobu Yamamoto making his second start of the season, up against the right-handed Gavin Williams. The team will have Thursday off as they prepare for a six game road-trip against the Washington Nationals (3-3), before heading to Toronto (4-2) for the first time since the World Series.
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|---|---|---|---|
| 5:20 P.M. | Los Angeles | ||
| LF | Kwan (L) | DH | Ohtani (L) |
| RF | Martínez (S) | RF | Tucker (L) |
| 3B | Ramírez (S) | SS | Betts |
| DH | Manzardo (L) | 1B | Freeman (L) |
| 1B | Hoskins | C | Smith |
| C | Naylor (L) | 3B | Muncy (L) |
| CF | Schneemann (L) | LF | T. Hernández |
| SS | Arias | CF | Pages |
| 2B | Rocchio (S) | 2B | Freeland (S) |
| P | Williams (R) | P | Yamamoto (R) |
The main and most significant change for either team is Cleveland’s Chase DeLauter not starting tonight after fouling a pitch off his surgically repaired foot last night. DeLauter has been on fire to start 2026, but has consistently dealt with differing injuries over the years. Hopefully he avoided something that’ll force him to miss significant time, but either way it’s tough for a Cleveland offense that needs as much help as it can get.
The Dodgers will run out their best lineup, with Shohei Ohtani, Kyle Tucker, and Freddie Freeman all still looking for their first homers, with Ohtani searching for his first extra-base hit.
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Here’s what Alex had to say about Yamamoto prior to his Opening Day start.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto gets his second consecutive Opening Day start and has the rare opportunity to get the win in each of the last three Dodger games. Yamamoto had a very good 2025 regular season, but took it to another level in October. After a pair of solid starts in LA in the Wild Card round (6 2/3 innings, two unearned runs, nine strikeouts) and the NLDS (four innings, three earned runs), Yama went crazy. His other four appearances in October came on the road, starting with an NLCS start in Milwaukee. Jackson Chourio took Yamamoto deep to start the game, but Yamamoto only allowed two more hits and a walk en route to a complete game. He followed that up by starting Game 2 of the World Series in Toronto and threw another complete game, allowing a run and four hits with eight strikeouts and no walks. He started the must-win Game 6 and allowed a run and five hits in six innings, and came back out the very next day for 2 2/3 shutout innings to finish the game and clinch the World Series. It was an unprecedented run for Yamamoto, who obviously won World Series MVP and etched his name in the Dodger history books. It also overshadowed his regular season, where he finished third in Cy Young voting with a 2.49 ERA in a team-leading 30 starts.
Yamamoto was very good in the season opener, cruising to a win where he allowed just two earned runs across six innings with five strikeouts and no walks. Truthfully he pitched better than the final line would suggest, he just left an 0-2 fastball down the middle to Geraldo Perdomo who kindly parked it in the right field bleachers, resulting in the only two runs that Arizona scored on opening day. He’ll look to avoid making mistakes like that tonight against a Cleveland offense that is a little weaker than that of Arizona.
Gavin Williams received the loss in his first outing of the year, where the 26 year-old struggled mightily with his command across five innings. He allowed three earned runs against the Mariners where he struck out seven but tied a career-worst with six walks. He had a similar outing against the Dodgers last season where he walked six across 4.2 innings and allowed four earned runs in the process.
He put together the best season of his young career in 2025, with a 3.06 ERA, 4.39 FIP, and a 1.27 WHIP over 167.2 innings, consistently finding good results despite the underlying metrics doubting him a bit. He was fantastic in the second half of last season, with his 2.18 ERA post All-Star break trailing just Paul Skenes (1.89) and Trevor Rogers (1.94). He sits in the upper-90’s with his fastball that has good shape, with a curveball and a sweeper as his primary breaking-balls, both above-average at generating swing-and-miss. He mixes in a cutter and a sinker, both which help keep the ball on the ground, rounding out an impressive arsenal. He’ll need his command to improve to really take a step forward in 2026 after walking over four batters per nine innings last year, but his arsenal and experience has him set up for success moving forward.
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While Ohtani will be built up to throw 90+ pitches per start, his innings and workload will be limited by getting him up to a week of rest between starts. Makes sense for both him and the team, as they don’t need 34 starts and 200 innings out of him in the regular season.
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Jake Eder is a former top prospect lefty, whose stuff was never quite the same after Tommy John surgery. He’s still just 27 years-old, so it’s an extremely low risk typical Dodgers move.
Grant Holman is a 25-year-old right-handed reliever with options. Gavin Stone to the IL isn’t much of surprise, and he’s still expected to contribute this summer.
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First pitch is at 5:20 PT on SNLA.
