Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
Opening Day had a bunch of firsts for Dodgers, none bigger than Julio Urias getting his first nod to start the year. While things didn’t start out ideally, Julio settled in and the Dodger bats came back with a vengeance in an easy 8-2 victory to start things out.
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As mentioned, things didn’t start swimmingly, as Urias hit Ketel Marte and allowed back-to-back singles to Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Christian Walker for an early 1-0 deficit. Not that the 2nd was much better, as it started with Nick Ahmed yanking a double down the line. He later advanced on a fly out, and came home on a Gabriel Moreno sacrifice fly for a 2-0 score.
Fortunately, after stranding a Will Smith double in the 1st and going down in order in the 2nd, the Dodgers struck back against Zac Gallen in the 3rd. James Outman worked an outstanding walk, battling back from 0-2, and Miguel Rojas stepped up and looped a double to right to put a pair in scoring position. Mookie Betts struck out and Freddie Freeman lined out softly to put the Dodgers on the verge of blowing the chance, but Will came up with his second hit of the day with an oppo single to tie things at 2-2.
The 5th led to further run support, this time behind the top of the order. Mookie drew a walk, Freddie singled to corner the runners, and Smith got his third hit of the day by blooping in a single for a 3-2 lead.
With two down and the runners still cornered, a pair of firsts added a pair of runs. J.D. Martinez came through with his first hit as a Dodger to plate a run — which also knocked Gallen out of the game — and David Peralta followed with his first hit as a Dodger to drive in another and make it 5-2.
Oh right, back to Urias, who we haven’t talked about because he was cruising. After the lead-off double in the 2nd, Urias retired essentially retired 15 in a row aside from a Rojas error that was followed by a double play and a Marte single that resulted in an out after Mookie made an outstanding play in right.
Urias was in cruise control for most of his outing and was very efficient getting through six frames on just 79 pitches: 6 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 0 BB, 6 K.
The bats didn’t stop scoring to back him, with the young guns combining in the 6th. Miguel Vargas drew a lead-off walk, and in his first game at Dodger Stadium, Outman worked a 3-2 count before smashing a ball the opposite way for his first homer at home and a 7-2 lead.
After struggling in the Spring and only making the team because he had options, Phil Bickford got the 7th and cruised through a 1-2-3 frame. Shelby Miller took over in the 8th and followed with a 1-2-3 frame of his own.
It looked like the Dodgers would tack on runs in the 8th a bit earlier, as Outman singled and took an extra base on a bobble, then Rojas ripped what looked like a double down the line. However, it hit the umpire and kept the Dodgers to runners on the corners. A bit later Freddie walked to load the bases and Smith drove in his fourth run of the day with a sacrifice fly to push the lead to 8-2.
Yency Almonte then entered in the 9th to close out the game, and he went 1-2-3, making it a minimum faced since the second for the staff.
Good start.
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Not at all terrifying.
In-game interviews are taking the next step.
This person got POPPED.
LMAOOOOO pic.twitter.com/OfibkMBDz7
— soledad 🤍 (@sxr_704) March 31, 2023
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1-0.
It’s a four-game series so we got a ways to go, but it was a good start and tomorrow we have Dustin May facing Merrill Kelly at 4:10 PM HT/7:10 PM PT/10:10 PM ET.
