The NL West leading Los Angeles Dodgers and second-place Arizona Diamondbacks are playing an important four-game series at Chase Field this weekend, and the Dodgers eked out a 10-9 win in Friday's opener. They did lose Clayton Kershaw, however. He left his start with a bone spur in his toe and was placed on the injured list Saturday.
The start of Saturday's game could not have gone any better for the Dodgers. Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman opened the game with back-to-back-to-back home runs off D-backs righty Merrill Kelly. They were all no-doubters too. Mookie's home run traveled 400 feet and was the shortest of the three. Ohtani went 420 feet and Freeman 437 feet.
Here are the back-to-back-to-back homers to open Saturday's game (GameTracker). This is the first time Ohtani, Betts, and Freeman have hit consecutive home runs regardless of their order in the lineup.
Saturday is the first time in franchise history the Dodgers opened a game with three consecutive home runs. The Dodgers last hit back-to-back-to-back homers at any point in the game on April 13, 2022. Cody Bellinger, Gavin Lux, and Austin Barnes did the honors in the eighth inning against the Minnesota Twins that day.
The Dodgers started Saturday's game with three straight home runs but they didn't even have the lead at the end of the first inning. The D-Backs answered back with four runs in the bottom of the first against Gavin Stone, including a leadoff inside-the-park homer from the resurgent Corbin Carroll. Teoscar Hernández made a costly misplay later in the inning.
Seven runs, four homers, and surprisingly only 33 combined pitches for Kelly and Stone in the first inning. Friday night the D-backs pushed four runs across the plate in the bottom of the ninth before the Dodgers were able to record the 27th out and close out the win. Two games into this series, it has been pure chaos between the two division rivals.
The Dodgers have baseball's best record at 81-54. The D-backs are five games back, though they are comfortably in wild-card position. This is the last series of the regular season between the two teams.