The ring was flashy.

The victory was anything but.

Before first pitch Monday night, former Dodgers first base coach and first-year Miami Marlins manager Clayton McCullough received a warm welcome back to Dodger Stadium. He was greeted by a parade of hugs from his old players during batting practice (including a leaping embrace into his arms from Mookie Betts). He was honored with a pregame ceremony on the field to receive his glitzy 2024 World Series ring. He received the highest of compliments from Dodgers manager Dave Roberts during his pregame media address.

"Clayton is a very, very special person, a very special coach,” Roberts said, describing McCullough as “a game changer” for last year’s championship team.

That, however, was as much hospitality as McCullough would get in his return to the Southland.

TOMMY CALLED GAME! pic.twitter.com/jswxa2d7sI

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) April 29, 2025

In the Dodgers’ 7-6 win over the Marlins, McCullough’s old club outlasted his new one in a game that never should have been that close, the Dodgers blowing an early five-run lead only to walk it off on Tommy Edman’s winning two-run single in the bottom of the 10th.

Monday should have been a much more straightforward win for the Dodgers.

Shohei Ohtani scored in the first inning on a leadoff single, a steal of second base and an RBI single from Freddie Freeman. Betts doubled the lead in the third with a bases-loaded hit. Former Marlins shortstop Miguel Rojas tacked on again in the fourth, roping a double down the left-field line for his first RBI and extra-base hit of the season.

Then, in what felt like a game-sealing sequence, Teoscar Hernández followed Freeman’s leadoff walk in the fifth with a sky-high two-run blast to left — making it 5-0 with his team-leading ninth long ball of the season and fourth in the last five games.

Read more:Dodgers put Tyler Glasnow on injured list unsure on when he'll return

Instead, a half-inning later, the Marlins made it a brand new ball game.

After five scoreless innings, Dodgers right-hander Dustin May was chased with one out in the sixth, giving up a run on two singles and a walk to get the hook after 83 pitches. With two left-handed hitters looming, Roberts summoned southpaw Anthony Banda from the bullpen. A sensible plan in theory, but with a disastrous outcome two batters later.

Lacking any consistent command, Banda walked his first batter on five pitches before falling behind again to pinch-hitting righty Dane Myers. Facing a three-and-one count, Banda tried to climb the ladder with a 96 mph fastball. Myers, however, was all over it, clobbering a no-doubt grand slam to left that stunned Chavez Ravine into silence. Just like that, the score was 5-5.

The Dodgers squandered chances to answer. They put their first two batters aboard in the sixth, had a runner at second with one out in the seventh and got a single to lead off the eighth. They couldn’t cash in on any of those opportunities, though.

The Marlins then took the lead on Jesús Sánchez’s two-out double in the top of the 10th.

In the end, however, the Dodgers survived.

Andy Pages led the bottom of the 10th with a walk. Kiké Hernández advanced Pages and automatic runner Michael Conforto to second and third with a sacrifice bunt. Then, after coming off the bench earlier in the game, Edman walked it off with a line drive single to right.

Read more:Dave Roberts adopts Palisades High baseball team coping with fire's destruction

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Six pitches into Monday’s start in Baltimore, it looked like it might be another rocky outing for young Will Warren as he allowed a single and a double to give the Orioles an instant scoring chance. 

The 25-year-old, facing a Baltimore offense mired in a horrendous slump with runners in scoring position (6-for-60), needed just 13 pitches to escape with no damage, getting a pair of swinging strikeouts.

“I thought Will had really good stuff tonight,” manager Aaron Boone said. “I thought his changeup was good. I thought his fastball had as good life as we’ve seen.”

The starter tallied five strikeouts and got 23 called strikes and whiffs on 72 pitches (the changeup was responsible for five whiffs on 10 swings), but was pulled with one out in the fourth inning after allowing four runs on five hits (three for extra bases) with two costly walks in the 4-3 loss to the Orioles.

As is the case with the start of his season, there was some good and some bad as his ERA rose to 5.63 through six outings.

“A mistake there around some walks that obviously ended up hurting,” Boone said, referring to the Orioles’ lone hit with a runner in scoring position on the night: Ryan O’Hearn’s third-inning three-run home run. 

“I’m never trying to start off the inning with back-to-back walks,” Warren said of the only free passes he surrendered on the night to start the frame. “And then obviously, O’Hearn did the damage on a pitch that didn’t get quite in. So yeah, it sucks.”

Warren didn’t regret the 2-2 sweeper to the left-handed hitter: “I think I need to be a little farther in, and the outcome’s probably different. Just gotta execute pitches.”

While Gunnar Henderson and Adley Rutschman are both struggling through the season's opening weeks, the two took several close pitches and worked walks on 3-2 pitches. “That’s a tough part of the order, obviously,” Boone said.

“I think at the end of the day, you just gotta force them to put the ball in play,” Warren said. 

The righty classified his first month as up and down with some good outings mixed in with some he wished he had back, like a start in Tampa that lasted just 1.2 innings. “I think overall it’s just about attacking in the zone.”

Boone said he felt like Warren’s command “has been there” and “some games it’s really been excellent.”

“He’s faced some tough lineups,” the manager said. “Cleveland threw all those lefties at him, [and Baltimore] is a tough left-handed lineup that’s tough on right-handed pitching.”

Despite Warren continuing to ride the roller coaster early this year, Boone did take some positives from the latest time out.

“Even though it’s only three-plus [innings] and he gives up the homer, there’s a lot of good in there,” he said. Some really good fastballs, some really good changeups. Got some big outs.” 

“But again, the two walks in that part of the order where you’re in the danger zone, and then a mistake. Hopefully continues to grow from it.”

A costly misplay

Warren had some tough luck with two outs in the second inning when Ramón Laureano drove a ball that went over Trent Grisham’s head to give the Orioles a 1-0 lead. It went for a double, but the center fielder got a terrible jump and was twisted around by the 380-foot liner that had a 95 percent catch probability, per Statcast.

TURN ON THE SPRINKLERS pic.twitter.com/vCEUp7vq13

— Baltimore Orioles (@Orioles) April 28, 2025

“I think he thought it was gonna fade,” Boone said. “It kinda cut back on him. I think he just expected it there, and it cut, so it went more straight over his head.”

Grisham said he got a “good read” off the bat, but “That ball was just in a different spot than I originally thought.”

Several injury updates

Before Monday’s game, Boone went through the status of several of the Yanks’ injured players (via Bryan Hoch):

- DH Giancarlo Stanton stayed behind in New York to continue workouts during the series in Baltimore. He will be doing running and on-field work, but there is still no set date for game action as he continues to ramp up.

- RHP Jonathan Loáisiga began a rehab assignment over the weekend with Class-A Tampa but is still “a few weeks away” from rejoining the club. The organization wants to see him pitch on back-to-back days before he gets activated. He will make two appearances with Tampa, the first on April 30, before he starts climbing the rehab ladder. 

- RHP Marcus Stroman is still experiencing discomfort in his knee and is continuing to play catch, but not “ramped up yet,” Boone said. He is dealing with “irritation that won’t leave, so we’re trying to look at everything.”

- RHP Scott Effross is preparing to throw a live batting practice in the first week of May.

Devin Williams returned to the mound after back-to-back rocky outings cost him his closer job and looked like the pitcher the Yankees acquired to anchor the back-end of the bullpen.

Williams faced the Orioles' five-six-seven hitters as he looked to preserve a one-run deficit and give the top of the Yanks order a chance at some ninth-inning heroics on Monday night in Baltimore. While the right-hander did his job, the bats didn’t hold up their end of the bargain in the 4-3 loss.

“Really good,” manager Aaron Boone said of the demoted closer's 14-pitch (nine-strike) eighth inning. “Just liked his look out there. Was aggressive, just in the strike zone, aggressive with his fastball.” 

It was three straight heaters to Ryan Mountcastle to get ahead 1-2, before a nasty changeup was whiffed for the first out.

“I thought every changeup he threw, [I] pretty good angle from it over there [from] my vantage point in the dugout, I liked the depth on the pitch,” the skipper added. “But also establishing his fastball in the strike zone with it.”

Williams battled Heston Kjerstad with the young left-handed outfielder fouling off three pitches and taking three balls before a changeup was weakly grounded to second. Ramon Urias saw two fastballs, ultimately popping out to first to close the door.

Devin Williams works a 1-2-3 eighth inning pic.twitter.com/CM5JNXgAX3

— Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) April 29, 2025

In his previous two outings, he surrendered four runs (three earned) on three hits and a walk in an inning at Tampa before he pitched no part of an inning last Friday in The Bronx, allowing three runs on two hits in a blown save against Toronto.

While it wasn’t a high-leverage situation, Boone said he liked the spot for Williams to get work after not appearing in Sunday’s doubleheader.

“Hoping he could hold the line there for us, and obviously he did and gave us a chance there,” he said. “It was good to see him get out there and have 1-2-3. Thought he had some real good conviction with every pitch he threw.”

The manager is hopeful that the outing is a “step in the right direction” and can help the closer get his “mojo” back, reminding him “just how darn good you are at this game.”

Of course, this is only the start of what could be a long build-up for him to return to his usual self. Monday's bounce-back saw Williams lower his ERA to an even 10.00 as he has now allowed 12 runs (10 earned) and 12 hits in 9.0 innings with seven walks and eight strikeouts.

Lost in the excitement of Brandon Nimmo's historic day and the Mets' offense exploding for 19 runs on Monday against the Washington Nationals to notch their 20th win was starter Griffin Canning who got through five scoreless innings and has been just as good as the rest of New York's starting pitchers to begin the season.

Canning had to battle through those five frames with traffic on the basepaths in almost every inning, but the right-hander executed pitches when he needed to and left the game unscathed.

"I thought he was good," said manager Carlos Mendoza. "They made him work. He had to work for a couple innings… He had to make pitches, kept making pitches, executed when he needed to, got strikeouts with the breaking ball, with the slider. Overall, I thought it was good."

Facing a scrappy Nationals team that came from behind in two walk-off wins in the series, Canning found himself in trouble on more than a few occasions.

In fact, in each of the first four innings, Washington had a runner in scoring position that Canning had to maneuver his way around. Which he did.

The 28-year-old who signed a one-year, $4.25 million contract in the offseason is now 4-1 with a 2.61 ERA over six starts in his first season in New York. In four of those starts, he's allowed one earned run or fewer and has shown a remarkable ability to remain calm in sticky situations like his 1.39 WHIP would suggest.

"I think it’s just a one-pitch-at-a-time mentality," Canning said about getting out of trouble. "Don’t try and get out of the situation. I think sometimes you can get it too big, so just focusing on executing one pitch at a time."

While the final score ended up being a blowout, those evacuations came with the game still tight and a lot of pressure on Canning to keep the lead, especially after Sunday's disheartening loss.

Canning ended his outing with a 1-2-3 fifth inning, his first clean inning of the game, including two strikeouts. He finished with five strikeouts and threw 90 pitches (56 strikes).

"Pretty good," he said about his performance. "I’d like to get deeper into the game. I just think I can clean up some stuff with my execution of the changeup and slider when I’m ahead of the count, but I’m not gonna complain about putting five zeros up."

So far, the one knock on Canning has been his length. He hasn't gone more than six innings once and is averaging just over 5.1 innings per start.

However, it's possible Mendoza could've sent him back out for the sixth had the Mets not scored three in the top half of the inning to take what appeared to be, at the time, a big 6-0 lead.

Regardless, Canning has been a pleasant surprise for his new club after he spent five seasons with the Los Angeles Angels, compiling a 25-34 record with a 4.78 ERA.

It's still too early to tell how the entire season will play out, but in the short term, president of baseball operations David Stearns deserves a ton of credit for seeing something in Canning and helping unlock it for New York's benefit as it withstands the losses of Sean Manaea and Frankie Montas.