A few weeks in, the Dodgers’ season is going about as expected.
They entered Monday with the best record in the majors at 11-4. Their lineup is leading the league in most statistical categories. Their combination of superstar talent and productive depth looks unmatched around the sport.
That doesn’t mean, however, that there haven’t been surprises.
The California Post looks at the 15 biggest ones from the team’s opening 15 games.
Expectations for Pages were high this year. Manager Dave Roberts even made him his “pick to click” in spring training, coming off 27 homers in 2025. Still, no one saw this coming. Pages leads MLB with a .429 batting average and 17 RBIs. He has the best OPS in the National League at 1.181. He’s had more hits and walks than outs in three of the club’s five series.
Among regular starters with at least 50 plate appearances, he is anyway. Though Tucker has been OK at getting on-base (nine walks, .343 OBP), the $240 million signing is batting just .246 with a .659 OPS and one home run. Last week, he was 5-for-25 without an extra-base hit. It’s early, and Tucker has still had some nice moments. But expectations were much, much higher than this.
Another small-sample, but potentially-troubling, stat with Tucker: His early strikeout rate is nearly 24%, significantly up from the 15% rate he has averaged over his first five full MLB seasons. He is also swinging, chasing and whiffing far more than usual. Remember, the Dodgers signed Tucker primarily to improve their contact and on-base abilities. So far, that hasn’t happened, making it easier for teams to pitch around Shohei Ohtani with Tucker behind him in the two-hole.
OK, Ohtani pursuing history isn’t a surprise. But his 46-game on-base streak dating back to last year (the longest ever by a Japanese-born big-leaguer) has been a unique feat even in his career. After all, Ohtani is known as a relative free-swinger, prone to plenty of strikeouts and the occasional 0-fer. His previous career-long on-base streak was 36 games with the Angels in 2022-2023. With the Dodgers, he’d never surpassed 29. But this year, he has been walking at a career-high rate, and showing more patience while opponents pitch around him. FWIW, the MLB record is Ted Williams’ 84-game streak in 1949.
During spring training, relief pitching looked like the Dodgers’ one weakness. Instead, the bullpen has accounted for a 3.40 ERA (10th in MLB), only one charged loss and two blown saves (tied for the second-fewest combined total in the majors), and the fifth-best batting average against in “high leverage” situations, as tracked by Fangraphs. Not perfection, but a significant improvement from last year nonetheless.
Like Tucker, the Dodgers’ other big offseason signing hasn’t gotten off to a seamless start. Díaz converted his first four saves as the new $69 million closer, but then blew a three-run lead Friday that drew attention to his diminished fastball velocity. Now, the team is “treading lightly” with his usage while he tries to figure out what’s wrong.
Out of the closer role and one year removed from the spotlight of his $72 million signing, Scott has looked more like the pitcher the Dodgers thought they were getting all along. He has allowed just one run in his first eight outings. He has eight strikeouts and no walks. Alex Vesia and Blake Treinen (another bounce-back bullpen candidate this year) have technically been better, with 0.00 ERAs so far. But Scott’s steadiness has been a refreshing reversal from his nightmare 2025.
Maybe this isn’t as much of a surprise given Sasaki’s poor spring training (despite the Dodgers’ best efforts to downplay his camp struggles). But still, after his success in the bullpen at the end of last year, his 6.23 ERA and 10 walks in 13 innings have been a disappointing development. So far, only 43% of his pitches have been in the strike zone, the 11th-lowest mark of 134 MLB starters with at least 10 innings pitched so far.
Not to jinx anything … but Dodgers pitchers have survived the first few weeks so far, suffering no new injuries since Opening Day. They couldn’t say that last year, when Blake Snell went down during the opening homestand and several other key arms joined him by the end of April. Injury concerns will linger, of course. But the fact that their staff –– and rotation, specifically, coming off last October’s workload –– has been this steady thus far is at least a positive early sign about their ability to withstand the long year ahead.
Even with the oldest lineup in the majors, the Dodgers have had a top-five defense to this point. They rank first in defensive runs saved, third in outs above average and fourth in fielding percentage. Even more surprising: 36-year-old Freddie Freeman and 35-year-old Max Muncy have been their most valuable gloves, according to Baseball Savant’s defensive metrics.
Last year, Smith was the second-worst pitch framer in the majors, according to Baseball Savant. So far this year, he’s been the fifth-best. Even with the introduction of ABS challenges, framing pitches remains a crucial skill. And now, it is becoming one more way the perennial All-Star has improved his game.
At the plate, Smith has been his typical self, batting .295 with an .842 OPS. This really says more about the early improvements Dalton Rushing has made, starting 7-for-13 with three homers and a double while embracing his back-up role in a way he struggled to last season. According to Baseball Reference, he has 0.6 WAR, compared to Smith’s 0.4. Rushing’s playing time will remain limited, but his production has been important nonetheless.
This is yet another sign of Tucker’s slow start, with his 0.3 WAR in 15 games less than Call’s 0.4 WAR in just five. Eventually, the expectation is that Tucker will get going. But for now, he’s been less valuable than even the team’s fourth outfielder in Call –– who is off to a nice 5-for-12 start to his year in a reserve role.
Turned out, Kim’s opening day demotion to triple-A didn’t last long. He was called up to replace the injured Mookie Betts last week, and has shown renewed progress at the plate after a disappointing finish to the spring. In six games, he’s batting over .300, has cut way down on his swing-and-miss, and is giving the Dodgers a potentially difficult roster decision to make once Betts returns (which shouldn’t be too long).
The surprise here is that it’s not better. While Freeman is only hitting .255, his contact metrics have been through the roof, resulting in an expected batting average, per Baseball Savant, 57 points higher than his actual one. If he keeps hitting the ball hard, and getting more of his many warning-track flyouts over the fence, he could be primed to heat up quickly.
After dominating the offseason discourse with their latest winter spending spree, it’s almost felt as if the Dodgers have flown under the league-wide radar so far, with outcries over competitive imbalance and economic inequality dying down for now. This, of course, won’t last forever –– not if the Dodgers keep stacking wins, explore a potential splash at the trade deadline, and remain the league’s top World Series contender come the fall. Fifteen games in, they’re on their way there.
