Opening Day! Dodgers 8, Dbacks 2

I want to start this recap by saying how grateful I am to be back for another season of Arizona Diamondbacks baseball with all of you. Today brought back all those familiar feelings from my childhood. Opening Day is always the best day of the year—a fresh wave of hope and optimism, the first sign of the dog days of summer ahead, and a welcome reunion with the friends we share this team with.

For D-backs fans, though, this nationally televised Opening Day felt more like a Dodgers home broadcast. Through the first three innings, we witnessed a classic pitchers’ duel between Zac Gallen and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. The two matched each other inning for inning, with Gallen actually holding a slight edge in pitch count and efficiency.

The highlight for Arizona came in the top of the fourth, when last season’s team MVP Geraldo Perdomo launched a two-run homer to put the D-backs up 2-0. Sadly, the national announcers were so focused on the Dodgers that they sounded almost surprised by the blast—and the broadcast barely captured it, with just one replay and a poor camera angle.

The momentum shifted in the bottom of the fifth. With a lead in hand, Gallen hung a knuckle curve to the Dodgers’ eighth-hole hitter, Andy Pages, who crushed a three-run homer to give Los Angeles a 3-2 advantage. It was an all-too-familiar scene for Gallen on Opening Day. As Jesse Friedman of Snakes Territory pointed out, Gallen posted the exact same line last year: four innings pitched and four earned runs allowed.

That one pitch aside, Gallen actually looked quite sharp, showing excellent command of his four-seamer and generating good downward movement on his hard cutter/slider. It was a frustrating end to what had been a solid start.

Once the Dodgers took the lead, the game quickly became all LA. Torey Lovullo turned to much of his high-leverage bullpen early, but the Dodgers kept piling on runs. One of the D-backs’ key bullpen additions this offseason, Taylor Clark, had a rough introduction in the seventh, surrendering four earned runs while recording just one out. It was far from the debut the front office or Clark had hoped for, and it raised early questions about the 2026 bullpen.

After the Dodgers blew the game open, Arizona’s offense went completely quiet. Dodgers relievers retired 18 of the final 19 D-backs batters—a stark tale of two very different bullpens.

On the bright side, Jordan Lawlar had an encouraging debut to the 2026 season. He ripped a big double in his first at-bat and later made a spectacular highlight-reel catch in left field, crashing into the wall in the seventh inning. After a slow start to his 2025 campaign, this was exactly the kind of confident beginning the young infielder—and the team—needed.

It was also nice to see newcomer Nolan Arenado pick up his first hit in a D-backs uniform in the seventh. Here’s hoping it’s the start of a strong offensive rebound for the veteran. He also made a couple of great plays at the hot corner highlighting his defensive value early on in the season.

At the end of the day, it’s simply great to have meaningful baseball back. Opening Day remains a highlight of the year for so many of us. Unfortunately, today carried some echoes of last season: the D-backs looked competitive against one of the game’s top teams for about half the game, only for the bullpen to let things slip away and the contest to get out of reach.

What did you guys think of the start to the season?