Shohei Ohtani hits one of Dodgers' three homers to beat Tigers in their home opener

The 2025 Dodgers looked a lot like the 2024 Dodgers on Thursday.

Just with gold lettering adorning their World Series championship jerseys.

In a 5-4 win over the Detroit Tigers in their home opener, this year’s Dodgers produced all the same hallmarks of last season’s title-winning club.

Timely offense, epitomized by Teoscar Hernández’s go-ahead, three-run home run in the fifth inning off reigning American League Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal, and Shohei Ohtani’s solo blast in the seventh for a key insurance run.

Starting pitching that was just good enough, with two-time Cy Young winner Blake Snell limiting damage in a five-inning, two-run debut with the team.

“You never know how the outcomes are going to be until you play,” manager Dave Roberts said, acknowledging the potential distractions surrounding the Dodgers’ bid to repeat as champions. “But we still found a way to win a ballgame. That’s a good thing.”

Indeed, Thursday always was going to be more about what the Dodgers’ accomplished in 2024 than how they’re embarking upon 2025.

Shohei Ohtani hits one of Dodgers' three homers to beat Tigers in their home opener

Over a 30-minute pregame ceremony, the team raised a “2024 World Champions” banner up the center-field flagpole, unveiled a new “2024” sign next to their other seven World Series plaques in right field, and was delivered the Commissioner’s Trophy by Ice Cube — via a Dodger blue Chevrolet Bel-Air the hip-hop artist drove across the warning track.

To commemorate their title, the Dodgers also wore special gold-trimmed jerseys and caps, just as they will again Friday when they are presented their World Series rings.

“Every day is special in its own right,” Roberts said, “but having these gold hats and uniforms, we nailed it.”

If all that wasn’t enough, the ceremonial first pitch came with a fitting twist. Kirk Gibson, the walk-off hero of the club’s 1988 World Series, took the mound to throw the ball. Freddie Freeman, the walk-off hero of last year’s Fall Classic against the New York Yankees, squatted behind the plate to catch it.

The accompanying roar from the early arriving Dodger Stadium crowd wasn’t quite to the level of either man’s iconic October home run. But for a hazy afternoon in late March, it was deafening nonetheless.

“The fans were really into it,” Roberts said. “The presentation with Freddie meeting Gibby, I thought, Gibby throwing out the first pitch, was fantastic.”

The Dodgers’ goal is to get back in the World Series, aiming to become Major League Baseball’s first repeat champion — and undisputed dynasty — since the New York Yankees of 1998 to 2000.

But first they have to tackle another grueling 162-game schedule. They’re off to an unblemished start.

After sweeping their season-opening series against the Chicago Cubs in Tokyo last week — in a trip that came with its own off-field circus — the Dodgers faced a new task on home soil against Skubal, the 28-year-old left-hander who rolled to last year’s Cy Young with an 18-4 record and AL-leading 2.39 earned-run average.

For four innings the Dodgers couldn’t crack him, a second-inning home run from Tommy Edman representing their only scoring.

Snell, meanwhile, was less clinical in his first Dodgers start, having to grind through a highly anticipated debut after signing a five-year, $182-million contract this offseason.

Though all five hits Snell gave up were singles — most of them hit softly — the veteran left-hander struggled to find the strike zone, walking four to put himself under constant stress.

In the second and third innings, Snell was able to wiggle out of trouble, leaving runners stranded in scoring position both times. But with the bases loaded and two outs in the fourth, he spiked consecutive two-strike curveballs to Ryan Kreidler, the second bouncing to the backstop to plate a run. Then in the fifth the Tigers loaded the bases again with two singles and a walk, setting up Manuel Margot for a sacrifice fly to center.

“Got away with some pitches, didn’t get away with some pitches, but overall I like what I learned today,” said Snell, who escaped further damage by keeping the Tigers hitless in nine at-bats with runners in scoring position (Detroit finished 0 for 15 in that department overall).

“I like to think when there’s runners in scoring position, I dig down and find a way to get out of it,” Snell added. “My only 1-2-3 inning was the first inning. After that it was a lot of fighting to get outs.”

On this Dodgers team, though, such survival likely is all that will be required most of the time. Snell ultimately earned the win thanks to Hernández’s go-ahead blast in the fifth.

Just like in the latter stages of last season, when Hernández punctuated his bounce-back, All-Star season with a penchant for clutch hitting that continued into the playoffs, Roberts bumped Hernández ahead of Freeman in Thursday’s batting order, putting the right-handed-hitting slugger third against a left-handed starter, and the left-handed-hitting Freeman fourth.

“I just like it,” Roberts said before the game. “There’s a Teoscar tax, to get through Freddie the third time.”

Indeed, with two on and two outs in the fifth, Skubal paid it on a first-pitch fastball, leaving a 96-mph heater over the heart of the plate that Hernández blasted to center, turning a 2-1 deficit into a 4-2 lead.

“It’s always great, especially here, in front of our fans,” said Hernández, whose three-year, $66-million re-signing in December marked another of the Dodgers’ most important offseason moves. “He doesn’t leave many in the middle of the plate. Today I got one — I think I got lucky on that one. Obviously, I was ready for it. I just hit it out.”

Ohtani did the same against Tigers reliever Brenan Hanifee in the seventh, going the other way for a solo shot (his second in three games) that restored the Dodgers’ two-run lead after Spencer Torkelson went deep in the top half of the inning.

“Today, with the opening ceremony,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton, “you wanted to make it a win.”

That, the Dodgers did. Tanner Scott gave up one run in the eighth but kept the lead. Blake Treinen put two aboard in the ninth but extinguished the threat for his first save.

And when the last out was recorded, on a soft pop-up caught by Freeman in foul ground, Dodger Stadium erupted in the same way it did so often last fall, celebrating a victory from its defending champions while gearing up for another long march toward World Series glory.

“We are thinking about what we’re going to do in 2025,” Hernández said. “2024 is in the past. Obviously it was a great year for everybody … But we’re focused on 2025, and just trying to repeat.”