Shohei Ohtani vs. Tanner Bibee.
March seemed to follow the old weather adage, "in like a lion, out like a lamb." The Dodgers stormed to three come-from-behind victories over the Diamondbacks to start the season, only to appear totally asleep in last night's series opener (a 4-2 loss). Maybe those Sundays off are a bad thing? We'll see if Shohei has anything to say about it, tonight.
Roki Sasaki vs. Parker Messick.
Remember Roki Sasaki, starter-turned-effective reliever in the 2025 postseason? Well, that guy is back to the starting rotation...except this 2026 Spring Training, he was not good, with a 15.58 ERA and 15 walks in 8 2/3 innings over four starts.
Yikes.
Sasaki hasn't proven himself as a MLB starter yet, going 1-1 with a 4.46 ERA (ERA+ 93) over eight starts in 2025. The Dodgers might actually have some bullpen options this year, so it makes sense to slot Sasaki back as a starter. But he'd better find his groove fast or this might be a long year.
Tyler Glasnow vs. Eduardo Rodriguez.
Last night was another come-from-behind victory for the Dodgers, as well as the debut of new Dodgers closer Edwin Diaz...and the debut of the Dodgers' new solo trumpet section (not yet sponsored by Uniqlo).
It would be nice to actually coast to a victory in one of these Opening Series games.
Emmet Sheehan vs. Ryne Nelson.
All was joyous at Dodger Stadium yesterday, with the Dodgers leveraging home runs from Andy Pages and Will Smith to romp to a 8-2 victory over Arizona.
But let's remember 2009, when Orlando Hudson hit for the cycle en route to a 11-1 Opening Day victory over the Giants, starting the season with a lot of momentum (the Dodgers ended up winning the NL West), only to crash out in the 2009 NLCS in a loss to the Phillies.
It was one game yesterday, over a team not expected to make the playoffs.
Now the ball goes to you, Emmet!
UPDATE: SoSG AC is at the Stadium tonight!
2025 World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto vs. Zac Gallen.
The Dodgers' quest for (even more) Championship history continues this evening at Chavez Ravine. With the Giants' loss to the Yankees on pre-Opening Day yesterday, the Dodgers look to take a commanding one-game lead in the standings over the Snakes and Gnats.
Today will be Yamamoto's second straight Opening Day start for the Dodgers; it is Gallen's fourth-straight Opening Day start for the Diamondbacks.
I'm so pumped for this game, for this season, for this team.
SoSG Dusty Baker will be at the Stadium representing the Sons.
LET'S GO, DODGERS!
Every holiday season, I get a little ping from our domain service provider to ask if I want to renew the website for another year. And lately, I've been debating this (minor) annual investment.
We started this blog in 2006, when the Dodgers were listless and pathetic and seemed to be fading away into irrelevance, beset by incompetent and miserly management regimes, not to mention three championship titles from the rival team up north. Sons of Steve Garvey was a way to keep up with the Dodgers' day to day travails, a spot for fans to vent about missed opportunities and postseason disappointments.
The late 2010s were especially painful, as the Dodgers' management got smarter, the team got better, and the proximity to a World Series Championship got tantalizingly close. But we couldn't get over the top, thwarted once by a band of cheaters and once by late injuries and a surging Red Sox team.
And then, everything changed. The Dodgers not only got better, we became dominant.
The COVID-shortened Championship title in 2020. The signings of Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Shohei Ohtani, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. The dramatic 2024 championship over our historic rival, the New York Yankees. The even more dramatic World Series Championship over the Toronto Blue Jays in 2025, arguably the best World Series ever.
We now have nine World Championship titles, eight of which happened with the franchise based in Los Angeles. And we reloaded this summer to actually appear even stronger than either of the last two years.
SoSG Orel will corroborate that at the beginning of the 2025 season, I predicted we would come up short but win the title in 2026. Our bullpen maladies last year almost made my prediction come true, but our starters had just enough in the tank to edge out the Jays for the series victory.
This year, we're on the precipice of a potential three-peat.
I'm excited.
Meanwhile, our website traffic has sunk to microscopic lows. The website now looks so antiquated, it almost appears like a malware or phishing site. It's clear that the original audience for this blog has since moved on, and yet here we are, still using the blog to post random thoughts and feelings about the team we love.
The team that everyone else in the country hates, because we spend a lot of money and win a lot of games. But the truth is, they're all jealous of our successes.
And this blog is testament to how much fun the ride has been, decades later.
Sons of Steve Garvey has become a neighborhood bar so dark and grimy that when you enter through the door, your eyes have to dilate before you can make out any sights--and right after you're hit by the stench of decades-old cigar smoke baked into the oak furniture and leather seating upholstery, you realize that there's just one other person in the bar with the hunched-over bartender behind the counter.
It may be a relic of another era. But for some of us, it's still home.
So, I've paid the annual domain fee for another year, which means I'll be posting for this 2026 Dodgers season.
Here's hoping you come in and take a seat.
Let's run this one back.
Once again, it's time to archive the prior season's attendance record, again a World Series Chamionship 2025 season for the Los Angeles Dodgers (the franchise's ninth title). The Sons were an amazing 10-2 during the regular season, as well as a spotless 2-0 during the postseason (and this was a second consecutive year that Sax has seen a walk-off Freddie Freeman home run in a World Series game!).
SoSG 2025 record: 10-2, 2-0 postseason
3/28 vs. DET (W, 8-5 (10)): Sax 4/2 vs. ATL (W, 6-5): AC 4/27 vs. WAS (W, 9-2): Dusty 5/17 vs. LAA (L, 2-6): Sax 5/31 vs. NYY (W, 18-2): Dusty, Sax 6/3 vs. NYM (W, 6-5): Nomo 6/15 vs. SF (W, 5-4): AC 6/17 vs. SD (W, 8-6): Dusty 6/18 vs. SD (W, 4-3): AC 6/22 vs. WAS (W, 13-7): AC, Dusty 7/5 vs. HOU (L, 6-4): Orel, Sax 9/18 vs. SF (W, 2-1): Sax
10/9 NLDS G4 vs. PHI (W, 2-1 (11)): Sax
10/27 WS G3 vs. TOR (W, 6-5 (18)): AC, Sax
In 2025, I only got to five games (3-2), plus two playoff games (2-0). That was the fewest number of games I had attended in a season in over a decade (excluding 2020). I pledge to get back to the Stadium a lot more in 2026!
Prior SoSG attendance records: 2008 (18-15), 2009 (21-10), 2010 (9-8), 2011 (10-7), 2012 (24-18), 2013 (24-16), 2014 (22-12), 2015 (27-13), 2016 (10-5), 2017 (27-13) 2018 (12-9), 2019 (10-5), 2020 (0-0), 2021 (4-3), 2022 (4-4), 2023 (5-5), 2024 (5-6).
