The first installment of the Freeway Series is set for tomorrow night in Anaheim, and the Dodgers arrive with the kind of swagger that only a second consecutive World Series title can bring. The Angels, meanwhile, are carrying the memory of a 6-0 sweep of the Dodgers last season into a matchup that now carries a sharper edge.
The game matters now because the Dodgers schedule has dropped them into one of the few local rivalries that still cuts through the noise, and because this one comes with Shohei Ohtani back at the center of the conversation. The Dodgers have not officially announced their probable starters, but one likely pitching matchup would put two 25-year-olds on the same mound calendar, both of whom debuted in the majors in 2024.
Jack Kochanowicz, who has a 3.97 ERA in 45.1 innings this season, is one possible answer for the Angels. On the other side, Emmet Sheehan’s return to this kind of stage would be a small marker of how quickly the Dodgers keep replenishing their pitching depth even as they deal with injuries and the demands of a defending champion’s season.
That depth is not complete. Blake Snell began the year on the injured list and has thrown only 3 innings so far, a reminder that the Dodgers are still waiting for parts of the roster to look like the version that won it all last year. The Angels, by contrast, are trying to prove that last season’s perfect record against their cross-town rival was not an outlier, even if the bigger arc of the franchises still points in opposite directions.
If the reported matchup holds, the most intriguing arm may be Jose Soriano, who has a 1.66 ERA through 54.1 innings with 61 strikeouts and 20 walks. He has been one of the few Angels starters to look more stable than symbolic, and that gives Anaheim a real foothold against a Dodgers team that has spent much of the last year proving it can win even when the shape of the roster changes.
That is what gives this opener its pull. The Dodgers come in as champions, but not with a fully declared pitching plan. The Angels come in with a season series edge from a year ago and a starter in Soriano who has looked capable of turning a local rivalry game into something louder than a routine stop on the calendar. The result will not settle the Freeway Series, but it will tell a lot about whether the Dodgers’ name still travels better than their opponent’s recent history in this matchup.
