Dodgers win on Smith's birthday homer after Roberts' lineup gamble
Will Smith delivers a two-run home run on his bobblehead night and birthday to help the Dodgers secure a 3-2 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Freddie Freeman rebounds from going hitless in the first two games, collecting three hits, including a double.
Tyler Glasnow and the Dodgers' bullpen combine for a strong effort to help the Dodgers improve to 3-0 on the season.
Freeze frame. There's Dodgers catcher Will Smith's follow-through as he watches the ball he just crushed travel toward the wall Saturday.
Now, split screen. Pull up an image of the bobblehead the Dodgers gave out before the game, commemorating Smith's Game 7 World Series-winning home run. It's a mirror image.
On his bobblehead night and 31st birthday, Smith delivered a two-run home run in the eighth inning as the Dodgers swept their season-opening series against the Arizona Diamondbacks with a 3-2 victory Saturday at Dodger Stadium.
" When you talk about big hits, clutch, Will's right at the top of the list," manager Dave Roberts said.
Roberts originally planned to sit Smith. The catcher played in the first two games of the series, and an off day on Sunday would have given him two straight days of rest early in a grueling season.
" We always talk about stuff," Smith said. "He was going to give me the day off, I just kind of dropped the bobblehead card [for Saturday] and he let me in there."
A key edit to the script.
Roberts made a few tweaks to the lineup ahead of the Dodgers facing a left-handed starter for the first time this season. Against Eduardo Rodriguez, Roberts swapped first baseman Freddie Freeman and Smith in the batting order; Smith hit fourth and Freeman fifth.
Santiago Espinal also made his Dodgers debut, starting at third base. Roberts said it wouldn't be a platoon between Espinal and Max Muncy at third, but he wasn't sure exactly how the playing-time split would play out.
For the first five innings, no one on the Dodgers did much on offense, except for Freeman.
Freeman went hitless in the first two games of the series despite making hard contact. But he had three hits in four at-bats Saturday, including a double in the sixth inning that drove in the Dodgers' first run.
" Definitely nice to get off the barrel on the first one and hit a flare up the middle," Freeman said. "And obviously once you get one, you can just kind of rest easy. And then they played the shift on my third hit, and that was nice, because then I was able to stay on the fastball and hit it to left field down the line."
That hit cut the Diamondbacks' lead to one run, thanks to a strong showing from the Dodgers' pitching staff.
Tyler Glasnow turned in a quality start. Holding the Diamondbacks to two runs over six innings, Glasnow used his curveball as his putaway pitch against right-handed hitters, and two-strike sinkers kept left-handed batters off balance, especially deeper into his start. Glasnow recorded six strikeouts.
The Dodgers' bullpen continued its scoreless streak for the series, as Alex Vesia, Will Klein and Edwin Díaz shut down the Diamondbacks through the last three innings.
