Dodgers Beat Royals in Skubal's Debut.
Tarik Skubal gave up three in five at Chavez Ravine. Max Muncy drove in three, Freddie Freeman had three hits, and the top of the order finally answered.
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Yesterday afternoon in Phoenix, the top four in the Dodgers order went 0-for-15.
Tonight they went 4-for-12 with two doubles, three runs and an RBI.
Dodgers 6, Royals 5.
Ten hits, no errors, and a bullpen that had to survive its own mistake to hold it.
Skubal's first night at Chavez Ravine.
Tarik Skubal made his Dodger Stadium debut and it was not a coronation.
Five innings.
Four hits.
Three runs, all earned.
Two walks, six strikeouts, one home run, 95 pitches.
Kansas City got to him in the first, and Jac Caglianone took him deep for a three-run shot that made it 3-2 in the third.
Six strikeouts in five innings is a real strikeout rate, and 95 pitches to get fifteen outs is not.
That is the honest read of the night: the stuff was there, the efficiency was not, and a debut in front of a home crowd is exactly the sort of start where that happens.
He did not get the win.
He also did not lose the game, which given the way the last week has gone counts for something.
Muncy and Freeman did the damage.
Max Muncy drove in three — one hit, one double, and the biggest swing of the night.
Freddie Freeman went 3-for-4 with two RBI.
The Dodgers put up three in the sixth to take the lead for good, and they did it the way they had not been doing it: 4-for-11 with runners in scoring position, a .313 team average, five extra-base hits.
Compare that with Sunday, when they went 1-for-5 with runners on and lost 4-2 with six hits.
Shohei Ohtani went 2-for-4 with a double, an RBI and two runs scored.
Mookie Betts doubled.
Tommy Edman singled and scored.
Hunter Feduccia and Miguel Rojas both doubled.
Nine of the ten starters reached base or drove one in.
The seventh nearly gave it away.
Los Angeles led 6-3 going to the seventh.
Jack Dreyer gave up a two-run home run to Kyle Isbel and suddenly it was 6-5 with the tying run on the way.
Dreyer got the win anyway, which is baseball being baseball.
What actually saved it was everything after him — Alex Vesia, Tanner Scott and Edwin Díaz combined for three innings without allowing a hit.
Díaz closed it out on twelve pitches for the save.
Three relievers, no hits, no runs.
That is the second straight night the bullpen has been the most reliable thing on the field.
We said this would happen, for once.
This morning we wrote that the thing to watch was whether the top of the order came back to life, and that a home crowd against a Kansas City club that does not scare anybody was where that usually gets fixed.
It got fixed.
We also got Sunday's pitching matchup completely backwards, so consider this the correction to the correction.
The record stands at roughly one for two.
What is next.
Two more against the Royals — Tuesday and Wednesday, both 7:10 at Dodger Stadium — then three against Milwaukee to finish the homestand.
Six straight at home was the schedule doing them a favor after two wins in eight on the road.
They have taken the first one.
Final score, box score, pitching lines and situational splits from the August 10, 2026 game at Dodger Stadium.
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