Another night that began with a ceremony for the Dodgers’ World Series championship culminated in a win.
And this time, not even one of the most important players from last year’s title-winning squad could crash the party.
Over a nearly 30-minute pregame ceremony Friday — one with so many Hollywood touches, it was emceed by actor Anthony Anderson and the voice of the Academy Awards, Randy Thomas — almost every member of the 2024 Dodgers was called to a makeshift infield stage to be presented with their intricately designed, 14-karat, diamond-bedazzled World Series rings.
Everyone, that is, except for Jack Flaherty.
Five months ago the L.A. native and childhood Dodgers fan played a key role on the championship team. He started Game 1 of both the National League Championship Series and the Fall Classic. He was one of the most emotional players during the downtown parade and Chavez Ravine celebration. And as he entered free agency, he made his hopes of staying with the organization abundantly clear.
“I love this city!” he yelled from a parade bus on the first day of November. “I never want to leave! I never want to leave!”
Leaving, however, was Flaherty’s only choice. He was squeezed out of the Dodgers’ winter plans following their signings of Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki. He ultimately re-signed in the same place he started last year, returning to the Detroit Tigers team that dealt him in a crucial deadline deal last summer.
And, in a serendipitous twist of scheduling coincidence, he returned to Dodger Stadium on Friday as the opposing starting pitcher, left to watch his old team’s ring ceremony while warming up in right field.
“He was the right person at the right time for our club,” manager Dave Roberts said before the game, cracking a sly grin. “Now, we can go beat him up today, and give him his ring tomorrow.”
In an 8-5 win over the Tigers, however, Flaherty became more of a backstory.
Despite holding the Dodgers hitless over four innings, and keeping them off the scoreboard until Freddie Freeman’s tying two-run homer in the sixth, Flaherty could only watch as his former team celebrated a walk-off win, a back-and-forth affair that ended on Mookie Betts’ three-run homer in the bottom of the 10th inning.
In the final three innings, the lead changed multiple times.
Betts initially broke a 2-2 tie with a solo home run in the eighth. Detroit’s Manuel Margot, also briefly a member of last year’s Dodgers team, then knotted the score again with an RBI single off Tanner Scott in the ninth.
In the top of the 10th, the Tigers appeared to take control when Dillon Dingler lined a two-run triple just beyond a diving effort from Michael Conforto in left.
But the Dodgers answered back once more. Conforto hit an RBI double. Will Smith came off the bench for a tying, pinch-hit single. Then, after Shohei Ohtani kept the rally going with a base hit to right, Betts went deep for the second time in as many at-bats, launching a blast deep to left to keep the Dodgers’ perfect start intact at 4-0.
