Blake Snell’s 2024 campaign started poorly, but things are shaping up differently this time.
After a bumpy entrance into last season with the San Francisco Giants—one that included a late signing, an injury, and a rocky start line—Snell is getting a much earlier start with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The team just made it official: Snell will start the Dodgers’ first home game of the 2025 MLB season.
That game is set for Thursday, March 27, at Dodger Stadium, where Snell will take the mound against the Detroit Tigers. It’s not just a marquee home opener — it’s the only Opening Day pitching matchup across Major League Baseball that features two former Cy Young Award winners.
The Tigers are sending out left-hander Tarik Skubal, who swept the American League Cy Young voting in 2024 after leading the league in ERA, strikeouts, and wins. Snell, of course, owns Cy Young hardware from his dominant seasons in 2018 and 2023.
This homecoming comes after the Dodgers made Snell their most high-profile offseason acquisition, signing him to a five-year, $182 million contract on November 30. The deal reunited Snell with Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, who originally drafted him back in 2011 when both were with the Tampa Bay Rays.
“Being able to pitch in a packed stadium, to make moments for people — this is where you want to play,” Snell said during his introductory press conference at Dodger Stadium in December. “Knowing Andrew as well as I know him, that played a big part. It all started because he believed in me.”
Snell has been building up his workload gradually during spring training, with two starts in Cactus League play and an appearance in an exhibition game at the Tokyo Dome against the Hanshin Tigers.
In that outing, he struck out seven of the 18 batters he faced and retired the first nine before giving up three runs in the fourth inning. He later confirmed he pitched a simulated game on March 22 to stay on schedule for Opening Day.
Following Blake Snell in the Dodgers’ rotation are Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki, who started the two-game series in Tokyo and will pitch again on Friday and Saturday, respectively.
The Dodgers are off on Sunday before Tyler Glasnow and Dustin May take the ball to begin the team’s next series against the Atlanta Braves.