The Los Angeles Dodgers will send Roki Sasaki to the mound to open their series against the Padres, with Walker Buehler lined up for San Diego in the first game. It is the first confirmed move of the matchup and it puts two familiar arms at the center of a game that matters now because the series is about to start.
That is why Wings vs Lynx is drawing attention today: the Dodgers enter at 52-29 and lead the National League West by nine games, while the Padres are 42-37 and still close enough to make the opener matter. The Dodgers also arrive after sweeping the Minnesota Twins in three games, and the Padres come in after sweeping the Atlanta Braves, so both clubs are carrying some momentum into the divisional set.
The pairing is also a reminder of how one-sided the season has been so far. The Dodgers already took two of three games from San Diego earlier in 2025 and have gone 9-4 against the Padres this year, a record that reflects how often Los Angeles has controlled the matchup. Sasaki has been part of that season-long picture, even if his numbers have been uneven, with a 4.76 ERA across 13 starts for the Dodgers.
Buehler gives the Padres a different kind of edge in the opener. He has posted a 2.05 ERA with 24 strikeouts over his last five outings, form that gives San Diego a chance to make a division series feel tighter than the standings suggest. That is the friction in this game: the Dodgers have separated from the field, but the Padres have shown enough recently to make the first night more than a routine start for either side.
What comes next is simple enough. Sasaki and Buehler will define the tone of the opener, and the result will say whether the Dodgers keep the series in their control or give the Padres a cleaner path to argue that the gap in the National League West is not as fixed as it looks.
