⚾ Dodgers 5, Cubs 2 — Fourth inning

Will Smith jumped on the first pitch and hammered a double into the left-field corner. After Max Muncy popped out to shortstop, Kiké Hernández hit a 2-2 fastball to deep left for the Dodgers’ second home run of the game. For Hernández, it was his first hit of the season after going 0 for 5 in Tuesday’s game.

The Dodgers inserted Luis Garcia to start the fourth inning, ending Roki Sasaki’s MLB debut after three innings. After retiring the Cubs in order on 11 pitches in the first inning, Sasaki had to work in and (mostly) out of trouble in his last two frames, piling up five walks, including three in a row in the third inning that brought in Chicago’s first run.

For the game, Sasaki pitched three innings, allowed one run on one hit with three strikeouts on 56 pitches.

Garcia, for his part, retired the first two hitters in the fourth inning before allowing a walk to Carson Kelly and a single to center to Jon Berti. Ian Happ then singled Kelly home before Garcia struck out Seiya Suzuki.

⚾ Dodgers 3, Cubs 1 — Third inning

After Jon Berti reached on a one-out infield single, Roki Sasaki allowed three consecutive walks to bring Berti around with the Cubs’ first run. But Sasaki escaped further damage with strikeouts of Michael Busch and Shaw.

Sasaki’s MLB debut is through three innings and after a 1-2-3 first inning, he’s had to wiggle out of trouble in the ensuing two frames, thanks mainly to five walks. Through the first 14 batters he’s faced, Sasaki has thrown a first-pitch ball 11 times. But he’s allowed only the infield single and recorded three strikeouts on 56 pitches.

⚾ Dodgers 3, Cubs 0 — Third inning

The Dodgers added to the lead with a two-out home run to left field by Tommy Edman, his first of the season.

That built on a pair of runs the Dodgers scored in the second inning, when Will Smith walked and Max Muncy doubled Smith to third. Smith scampered home on a passed ball, moving Muncy to third. Kiké Hernández then hit a sacrafice fly to plate Muncy.

TOKYO — Freddie Freeman was feeling better Wednesday, a night after being scratched from the Dodgers’ opening day lineup because of rib soreness.

However, the All-Star first baseman and reining World Series MVP was again out of the team’s lineup for its Tokyo series finale against the Chicago Cubs, with the Dodgers opting for the same cautious approach that led them to send an ailing Mookie Betts home from the trip early.

Like with Betts, the Dodgers decided not to risk pushing Freeman at this early juncture of the season, hoping to ensure his long-term health by keeping him out of action in Japan.

Also like Betts, Freeman is expected to return to the field once the team returns home, with manager Dave Roberts saying his expectation is that Freeman will play during the team’s final preseason games against the Angels back in Southern California next week.

“He lobbied hard, like he always does. He wants to play every day. He prepared to play,” Roberts said of Freeman, who was seen walking to the hitting cages, bat in hand, hours before first pitch. “But ultimately, [he] conceded to myself and the training staff. It’s just too early in the season to potentially put him in harm’s way.”

Without Freeman, the Dodgers once again started Kiké Hernández at first base, and had Teoscar Hernández batting third.

TOKYO — They screamed.

They screamed and made that noise that crowds make when thousands of people scream at the same time, that sound that is heard when the home team takes a lead late in a playoff game.

The smile got a little bigger, the emotions a little deeper, the meaning a little greater the more Dave Roberts looked around the room.

In the wake of last year’s World Series title, in which Roberts led the Dodgers to the second championship of his decorated tenure, the veteran manager spent weeks basking in the triumph. He sprayed champagne in the Bronx. He danced with Ice Cube the day of the parade. He rejoiced with friends and family who watched him endure a season he described as “the most trying” of his nine years with the Dodgers, but also “the most satisfying.”

RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan — Other than the concrete skeletal remains of a three-story office supply store, there was nothing on the expansive field.

Just acres and acres of dried grass.

TOKYO — Andrew Friedman remembers the talent, the crowd and maybe most of all, the hats.

In February 2023, in the lead-up to the most anticipated World Baseball Classic to date, the Dodgers president of baseball operations accompanied team scouts and executives on a trip to Japan to get an in-person look at the nation’s Samurai Japan national team.

TOKYO — It was the overriding theme of last October, an intangible factor that yielded triumphant results.

During their run to last year’s World Series, the Dodgers repeatedly cited their clubhouse culture and roster-wide camaraderie as a key behind their postseason success. They knew it sounded cliche. But they felt it was transformational.

TOKYO — When Roki Sasaki signed with the Dodgers, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman revealed that one of Sasaki’s goals was to become the first Japanese pitcher to win a Cy Young Award.

Another pitcher on the Dodgers could steal that distinction from Sasaki, and the most likely candidate might not even be Shohei Ohtani.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto could beat his two countrymen to the honor, and considering how he pitched in the Dodgers’ season-opening 4-1 victory over the Chicago Cubs at the Tokyo Dome, who’s to say he won’t?

“If he can do that, obviously health [permitting], I see no reason why he won’t be in the Cy Young conversation,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.

TOKYO — For all the memorable cultural experiences they enjoyed off the field, and all their eye-opening revelations they about the club’s growing popularity here in Japan, the baseball side of the Dodgers’ season-opening trip to Tokyo hadn’t gotten off to the most seamless of starts.

Mookie Betts was ruled out of action after arriving in Tokyo battling a stomach virus, and eventually forced to make an early return home to Los Angeles on Monday night after losing almost 15 pounds.

Freddie Freeman was scratched from the opening-day lineup shortly before first pitch Tuesday night, after experiencing discomfort in the same left rib where he suffered broken cartilage during last year’s postseason.

And, after getting shut out in a Sunday exhibition against a Japanese team at the Tokyo Dome, the Dodgers began their season without a hit for the first four innings against Chicago Cubs ace and star Japanese left-hander Shota Imanaga, twice coming up empty in innings they drew two walks.