Japan native Yoshinobu Yamamoto will toe the mound first for the Dodgers, facing off against fellow countryman Shota Imanaga. It will mark the first time in MLB history that an opening day pitching matchup is all-Japanese. The two were teammates on Japan’s 2023 World Baseball Classic winning team, which also featured the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani and Roki Sasaki.

The latter, who the Dodgers inked to a contract in the offseason, is slated to start for Los Angeles in the second game of the series, in which the Dodgers will be the away team.

Related: MLB star Shohei Ohtani on return to Japan, 2025 season and his impact on kids: “I feel a strong responsibility”

Sasaki was one of the many high profile additions that the Dodgers made in the months following their World Series win. They also signed left-handed ace Blake Snell to a five-year, $182 million contract, standout relievers Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates and South Korean infielder Hyeseong Kim.

Those adds come just a year after what was inarguably the biggest offseason the team has ever had, highlighted by the Ohtani, Yamamoto and Teoscar Hernández signings and a trade that landed Tyler Glasnow from the Tampa Bay Rays.

All of the previously named Japanese pitchers, plus Cubs outfielder Seiya Suzuki, experienced incredible success playing in Nippon Professional Baseball, the country’s top professional baseball league. Both the Dodgers and Cubs played a series of exhibition games against NPB’s Yomiuri Giants and Hanshin Tigers.

On top of all those connections, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts also has distinct ties to Japan. He was born in Naha, Okinawa in 1972 to his mother Eiko, an Okinawa native and his father Waymon, who was stationed in Japan with the US Marine Crops.

Last season, his first since leaving Japan, Yamamoto performed exactly as expected, hurling 90 innings to the tune of a 3.00 ERA, 105 strikeouts and a 7-2 record. He made four postseason starts for the Boys in Blue as well, each of which they wound up winning.

Ohtani put together what may be the finest season ever in 2024, when he became the first and only member of the 50 home run and 50 stolen bases club, which made him the clear favorite and eventual winner of his third Most Valuable Player Award. It was his first since he left the Los Angeles Angels, with whom he won the award in 2021 and 2023.

Despite these two games marking the official start of the season, the Dodgers will return to Southern California next week for a three-game series of exhibitions against the Angels, what many know and love as the Freeway Series. Those games will lead up to March 27, when the Dodgers host the Detroit Tigers and the rest of the league begins the 2025 campaign.

If they do pull off their second-straight title, they’ll be the first to do so since the New York Yankees won back-to-back-to-back World Series from 1998 to 2000.