As Opening Day of the 2020 Major League Baseball season remains indefinitely delayed, MLB.TV made every game from 2018 and 2019 available to stream for free. With that, DodgerBlue.com ranked the best Los Angeles Dodgers games from those two seasons.
Checking in at No. 8 on the list for the 2019 season was when the Dodgers set an Opening Day record with eight home runs in a rout of Zack Greinke and the Arizona Diamondbacks.
“An Opening Day to remember at the ravine,” is how announcer Joe Davis called the eighth and final home run of the game for the Dodgers, and the words couldn’t have rung truer.
With Clayton Kershaw sidelined for the first time in what seemed like forever, the Dodgers sent Hyun-Jin Ryu to the mound to face old friend Greinke and the Diamondbacks. Then again, this day wasn’t about the pitchers — but the hitters.
The Dodgers grabbed the lead in the first inning after Joc Pederson doubled off the wall to open things up (this would be the only time a fly ball from the Dodgers didn’t carry over the fence) and would later come around to score.
Pederson came back in the second inning and smashed a ball to dead-center for a two-run home run and the Dodgers’ first dinger of the game.
Their three-run lead would hold until the fourth inning when things really got broken open. First it was Kiké Hernandez with a two-run shot before Austin Barnes went back-to-back to make it a 6-0 lead.
Just for good measure, Corey Seager added a solo shot later in the inning — a smash that would bring an end to Greinke’s day (3.2 innings and seven runs allowed).
After the Diamondbacks got one back on an Adam Jones home run in the sixth (the only run Ryu would allow all day), Pederson notched his second homer of the day in the bottom half of the inning to put the Dodgers up 9-1.
Then it was Max Muncy, Cody Bellinger and Hernandez in the seventh (the latter two of the back-to-back variety), which put the Dodgers up 12-2 and well on their way to an eventual 12-5 victory.
The eight Opening Day home runs set a record — and, little did we know at the time, but a sign of things to come. After setting the franchise record for home runs in a season in both 2017 (221) and 2018 (235), the Dodgers shattered the mark again — hitting a total of 279 long balls last season.
Overall, this was absolutely everything you hope for in an Opening Day moment — the weather was perfect, the pitching was dominant and the bats were as alive as ever. No drama, no worry, no anxiety — just bombs and bat flips for the Dodgers.
Best Dodgers games of 2019
No. 9: Kiké Hernandez hits walk-off on bobblehead night
No. 10: Clinching seventh consecutive National League West title in record fashion
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