Category: Sports News

Five months removed from one storybook ending, the Dodgers are already penning another Hollywood-worthy script.

It started last week in Japan, when the defending World Series champions were fervently welcomed on the other side of the world. It continued into this weekend’s opening homestand; one that featured a sentimental banner-raising celebration at Dodger Stadium on Thursday, then an emotional championship ring ceremony before first pitch Friday.

Read more:The Dodgers received their World Series rings. Here's what they look like

Amid that backdrop, the Dodgers might have been forgiven for struggling with an early season hangover. Like countless champions before them, it would have been no surprise for their title defense to begin with a slow first step.

But instead, these Dodgers have embraced all the pomp, absorbed all the circumstance, and put their own triumphant stamp on the season’s opening act.

For the first time since 1981, they're off to a 4-0 start. And on Friday — in an 8-5, walk-off win over the Detroit Tigers that included a five-run rally and Mookie Betts' game-winning home run in the 10th inning — they even started to rekindle last year’s magic.

"By far, the best opening week I've ever experienced,” manager Dave Roberts said.

“Kind of feels like we’re just picking up a little bit where we left off last year,” third baseman Max Muncy echoed. “There’s still a lot of fight in this team.”

Friday night was not always destined to end so spectacularly.

Early on the Dodgers generated little against Tigers starter Jack Flaherty, one of the few core pieces from their postseason run who didn't return, and didn't score until a two-run home run from Freddie Freeman in the sixth.

Later the Dodgers squandered the opportunity for a more rudimentary win. New reliever Tanner Scott blew a save in the ninth and needed his defense to throw out another runner at the plate simply to force extra innings. In the 10th the Tigers quickly surged to a 5-3 lead when Dillon Dingler’s two-run, two-out triple landed just beyond a diving effort from Michael Conforto in left field.

But in a week that has been so dedicated to honoring the Dodgers’ 2024 success — when their World Series trek included a litany of injuries, a shorthanded roster and near-elimination at the start of the playoffs — this team orchestrated its own resilient answer for the first time.

"It's kind of a hallmark of our ballclub,” Roberts said. “We just don't quit.”

“We're kind of carrying that over a little bit from last year,” Muncy added. “You can have all the talent in the world but if you don’t have that gel in the clubhouse, then it’s not gonna work.”

In the bottom of the 10th, Conforto cut the deficit in half with a leadoff double, scoring the automatic runner from second. Will Smith came off the bench and slapped an RBI single through the infield, tying the score at 5-5.

Shohei Ohtani kept the rally going, lining a base hit to right to put two runners aboard. Then, just as he had two innings earlier, when he broke a 2-2 tie with a home run to left, Betts came to the plate and delivered again, whacking a no-doubt, stadium-shaking blast.

“I just couldn't have scripted it any better,” Roberts said. “It's huge, especially given all that we've taken on in this last, call it, 10 days."

No one’s last 10 days have been as wild as what Betts has experienced.

In Tokyo he was unable to play after losing more than 15 pounds while battling a stomach virus. Up until Tuesday it was unclear if the 32-year-old star, who also is embarking on a position change back to shortstop, would be available for this series.

His first home run was so surprising to his teammates — given that he has been playing at about only 165 pounds, well below an already undersized stature to begin with — that Muncy said they joked it “was probably the best bulk that he’s got right now,” noting how it barely clear the fence in left field.

When Betts came up in the 10th, he worked an eight-pitch at-bat before jumping on a changeup below the zone. The ball rocketed off his bat at 97 mph. Even on a brisk night at Chavez Ravine, it landed several rows deep in the left-field pavilion.

Read more:Shaikin: Jack Flaherty grateful for L.A. World Series moment even though it didn't last

“He one-upped us, so we were all wrong on that one,” Muncy conceded with a laugh.

"That was not on my bingo card,” Roberts echoed in amazement. “He just does some special things ... He won a ballgame for us tonight."

As Betts rounded the bases he broke into an animated celebration that felt right out of last October’s highlight reel.

Part of the reaction, he explained later, was personal exaltation.

“Just the fight that I’ve been through, the ups and downs, the nights where I’m just crying because I’m sick, my wife there kind of holding me,” he recalled of his two-week ordeal, “that’s where that emotion comes from.”

But the rest of the emotion, he added, was simply “winning for the boys.”

Such sentiments are what helped carry the Dodgers last fall — a key reason why, for roughly 30 minutes before first pitch Friday, every 2024 team member in the building other than Flaherty (who will get his ring Saturday) was called to a makeshift stage to receive their 14-karat, 300-diamond piece of jeweled history.

“It’s my favorite one,” said Betts, the only active position player in MLB with three World Series championships. “Hopefully I can get some more and we’ll be able to compare.”

To that end, the Dodgers already giving early validation to their status as World Series favorites with the franchise’s best four-game start in 44 years.

“It’s a great thing to be a Dodger, a lot of cool things happen,” veteran catcher Austin Barnes said. “Play a lot of cool games. Go to Tokyo. Get some rings. Opening day. They do things right here. ... So yeah, it’s been a great little week. But gotta keep going.”

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

HOUSTON -- Two games into the season, we have gathered some data on how Mets manager Carlos Mendoza will approach game strategy with his new roster.

Friday’s 3-1 win over Houston allowed Mendoza his first opportunity to deploy his current group of high-leverage relievers. He chose to bring in Reed Garrett to bail Tylor Megill out of a jam in the sixth, new acquisition A.J. Minter in the seventh, Ryne Stanek in the eighth and Edwin Diaz in the ninth.

All were effective, but that order of relievers was not what we will see every time the Mets are protecting a tight lead in the early part of the season.

-- Mendoza said he is still tinkering with when to use Minter, Stanek and Garrett in the eighth versus the seventh.

“There’s going to be a combination,” the manager said. “[It will depend on] who is available, who is coming up.”

When Mendoza served as Aaron Boone’s bench coach with the Yankees, the coaching staff would meet before the game to determine the best “lanes,” as they called them, for each reliever against the night’s opposing lineup.

The Mets’ approach under Mendoza sounds similar. They will look every day at data that cuts deeper than handedness and prior history, like how a given pitcher’s stuff plays against an opponent’s swing. They will consider which pitchers are most capable that night of contributing length, among many other factors that will determine the ideal situation for each.

-- You’ll see Diaz at some point in the spot that Stanek faced on Friday: eighth inning, best part of the lineup. In this case, it was Jose Altuve, Isaac Parades and Yordan Alvarez. Stanek took care of them, but contemporary managers, including Mendoza, often use their “closers" (a term that is gradually becoming anachronistic) in that spot.

I asked Mendoza after the game if he considered Diaz in the eighth. He said no, primarily because it was Diaz’s first appearance of the season. He wanted to get his closer out of the gate in standard fashion. But if, say, it’s next weekend at Citi Field and Toronto’s Bo Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Anthony Santander are due up in the eighth with the Mets up by a few runs, that could easily be Diaz’s inning.

-- One last bit of late-inning run prevention strategy: Mendoza said that he might use Luisangel Acuña as a late-inning defensive replacement at second base on days that Brett Baty starts. On Friday, Acuna pinch-hit for Baty in the seventh because of a platoon advantage. He then made a nifty play on a grounder in the eighth.

Baty is a hardworking neophyte at the position and Acuña is what Mendoza called a “plus-plus defender” there. Because of that, the manager might make the substitution for purely defensive reasons late in games, even if an obvious pinch-hit situation does not arise -- provided that he is not facing a team with righty relievers that could make it unwise to remove the lefty Baty. Managing is complicated.

After their rally fell short on Opening Day, the Mets came back with an impressive 3-1 win over the Astros in Houston on Friday night. Manager Carlos Mendoza had a few things to talk about before and after the game, including his starting rotation, Brett Baty and when we'll see outfielder Jose Siri in a game.

Why Tyrone Taylor get the start over Jose Siri on Friday

One of the notable acquisitions for the Mets this offseason was the trade for outfielder Jose Siri. The right-hander has a great glove and some sneaky pop, but he has not appeared in the first two games of the 2025 season.

Mendoza was asked about why he started Taylor against starter hard-throwing right-hander Hunter Brown on Friday.

"Hunter Brown, there’s velo, there’s the sinker, cutter, it’s more of that," Mendoza explained. "There’s a good chance Siri plays tomorrow."

Taylor went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts on Friday and has started the season 1-for-8.

A media member asked the Mets skipper if Siri would sit against the team's best pitchers, which Mendoza answered plainly.

"It’s the big league;s you’re facing the best of the best every day. Siri is going to get a lot of opportunities. First two games of the season, and he’s not there. He’s going to play a lot." 

Siri had a solid spring with impressive numbers coming from the power department. In 16 games, Siri hit three home runs while driving in 11 runs.

The Mets will take on right-handed pitcher Spencer Arrighetti on Saturday, so we'll see if Siri is in the lineup.

Confidence in starting rotation to start season?

The Mets, like many other teams, saw many injuries this spring. For New York, their starting rotation took huge hits when Sean Manaea and Frankie Montas went down.

They got more injury news when Paul Blackburn had to start the season on the IL with a knee issue, something that is seemingly close to clearing up. Those injuries have left Mendoza to roll out a rotation that includes Friday's starter Tylor Megill, amongst other question marks like reliever-turned-starter Clay Holmes and Kodai Senga, who hasn't pitched many innings in two years.

Despite that, Mendoza is confident in his rotation.

"We feel really good about it," he said. "We got the guys in there, they’re going to give a chance to win baseball games game in and game out. We feel good with that."

Holmes was solid yet erratic on Opening Day, but Megill proved his skipper's confidence right. The big left-hander was solid, allowing just one run on three hits and one walk across five innings while striking out six.

"I thought he was really good," Mendoza said after Friday's game. "Early on he was attacking. They hit some balls hard but that's what we're asking him to do, throw strikes and stay on the attack. When they scored that run I thought he kept making pitches. He settled in nicely and limited the damage, which is something we also want to see... I thought overall, he threw the ball really well."

Message to Brett Baty

Baty made his first start of the season Friday at second base. While he went hitless in his two at-bats -- before being pulled for Luisangel Acuña for defense -- it was still a good outing for the young infielder.

It was a pivotal game for Baty, who is looking to solidify himself as a major leaguer after a couple of underperforming seasons. Mendoza has dealt with young infielders like this just last season. When Baty was demoted a year ago, Mark Vientos came up and took the third base job. The Mets skipper, and the rest of the organization reassured Vientos of his role, and they are doing the same for Baty.

"[I told him] be yourself. Same thing you’re doing here [in spring training], just continue to be yourself," Mendoza said. "Don’t feel like you have to get three, four hits to be in the lineup the next day. Trust the work. We saw results in spring training. Now it’s up to him."

Mendoza raved about Baty's advances at second. The improvements in his communication from pitch to pitch and his range, which he has shown in spring.

With a right-hander on the mound for Houston on Saturday, Baty is likely to start at second again.

Tylor Megillhas had ups and downs as he enters his fifth big league season with the Mets. But the talent of his right arm has never been in doubt.

“It starts with having really good stuff, he's got good stuff,” manager Carlos Mendoza said before Megill started Friday’s game in Houston.

“If he’s aggressive and he’s trusting his pitches in the zone? He’s a guy, he’s a dude,” the skipper added. “He’s got that potential… he’s been through a lot in this league, and he’s ready to take that next step.”

Against the Astros, Megill retired the first nine batters he faced en route to a fine five-inning outing that saw him allow one run on three hits and a walk with six strikeouts in the Mets’ 3-1 win.

“I thought he was really good,” Mendoza said. “I thought he threw strikes. Early on, he was attacking; they hit some balls hard, but that’s what we are asking him to do: to throw strikes, stay on the attack.”

And that was the prescription for the 29-year-old: Simplifying his game and being efficient with his pitches.

“When we can keep it simple, just use two-three pitches against righties, two- three pitches against lefties. Get strike one, continue to stay in the attack, trust the defense, trust your pitches in the strike zone,” the manager said pregame. “I think that’s gonna be the key for him.”

Megill, who threw a strike on the first pitch to 11 of 19 batters he faced, had 49 strikes on 77 pitches. He went heavy on the fastball, sinker, and slider – accounting for 72 of his offerings – against a right-handed heavy Astros lineup.

“We executed really well,” he said, after getting 10 whiffs on 35 swings with 14 called strikes for a 31 called-strike whiff percentage. The slider was working very well for him, contributing five whiffs on eight swings.

“Putting pressure on hitters, getting ahead early, and getting to two strikes as fast as possible,” Megill said. “That allows me to go after them with the secondary stuff and get some strikeouts and then some weak contact.”

The sinker, a pitch the manager said before the game his starter would have to show good “awareness” in deploying against the right-handed Astros – came up big getting an inning-ending double play in the fifth.

“Huge,” Megill said. “That’s kinda what the pitch is for: get the ball in play and let the defense work. And it helps me out, especially there. Obviously, used to be predominantly four-seam, get fly outs or whatnot, but sinker really allows ball on the infield hit to a position player.”

In the fourth inning, the Astros bit him for their only run of the night – with back-to-back singles setting up a sacrifice fly – the manager praised the starter for avoiding a big inning.

“He kept making pitches,” Mendoza said. “The last couple of innings he was really good, got in trouble there, we didn’t make a play the leadoff hitter in the sixth [on the dropped third strike], but I thought overall he threw the ball really well.”

Now comes the challenge of repeating the performance and proving he can be a guy, a dude, as the manager said.

“I think, day in and day out, gotta stay working; consistency is the name of the game,” Megill said. “If I can go out and do what I did tonight, keep that going forward, throughout the whole year, I think I’ll end up in really good shape.”

Bullpen keeps at it

In that sixth, Mendoza turned to Reed Garrett with runners on first and second and nobody out. The right-hander worked around a one-out walk to put out the fire with two strikeouts.

“Unbelievable job coming in in that situation,” the manager said. “Getting a strikeout, understanding that there was a base open [against Yordan] Alvarez and he could still make pitches. And that’s what he did.”

After Garrett in the sixth, Mendoza went with A.J. Minter and Ryne Stanek to bridge the gap to Edwin Diaz. But, as he has said all spring, the roles for the high-leverage situations will be based on who is coming up in the lineup and who is available that day.

“We’ll play the matchups there,” Mendoza said. “You saw it today in that situation; we like Reed Garrett at the top with traffic, and then it lined up perfectly after that.”

When it came time for Diaz in the ninth, the closer was all business: getting five called strikes, five fouls, and two whiffs on 15 pitches.

"As soon as I started warming up in the bullpen, I knew my pitches were really good today," Daiz said. "And I just came out and tried to have fun. That's what I did."

After Diaz’s velocity had been a topic of conversation during the spring – at least outside the Mets’ clubhouse – the four-straight 98 mph fastballs he threw to start the ninth inning quieted any chatter on that front.

“Of course, we weren’t worried about the velo,” Mendoza said. “We knew that once the lights goes on we’re gonna see typical Sugar.”

"Today, the intensity was higher than it was in spring training," the closer added. "Spring training, sometimes you go out and just try and work on things, so I wasn't paying attention much to my velo. I knew today, as soon as I start playing catch, I knew my velo was there. Was feeling strong. It's way different in the season than spring training."

The thing that impressed the skipper most about the 1-2-3 ninth: “How easy he attacked. He came in and attacked hitters right away… he was attacking in the strike zone and just challenge those guys.”

Unsung bullpen hero

Of course, on a night he didn't appear, Huascar Brazobán played a role after retiring seven of the nine batters he faced on Opening Day to eat up innings after Clay Holmes' short start.

“It was huge,” the skipper said of Brazobán before the game Friday. “It was huge for him to go three ups, 2.1 I think it was, pretty much save our bullpen when Clay comes out of the game after 4.2, for him to go out there and pitch efficiently.

"It was an easier decision for me to send him back out there [because] he’s built up for that. We had him up to 35 pitches in spring training. And the fact that he was able to do that and pretty much save some of the other guys for [Friday night] and for the rest of the series, it was huge.”