page_title: 2014 Los Angeles Dodgers season
section_title: Opening series
hierarchical_section_title: 2014 Los Angeles Dodgers season / Regular season / Opening series
caption_attribution_description: Major League Baseball Opening Series 2014 in Sydney, Australia
context_page_description: The 2014 Los Angeles Dodgers season was the 125th for the franchise in Major League Baseball, and their 57th season in Los Angeles. On April 30, the Dodgers picked up their 10,000th win since joining the National League in 1890. They proceeded to win their second straight NL West championship but lost in four games to the St. Louis Cardinals in the Division Series.
  Several players had excellent years: Adrián González led the major leagues in runs batted in; Dee Gordon led the major leagues in stolen bases and triples and Clayton Kershaw led the major leagues in earned run average and wins. In addition, both Kershaw and Josh Beckett pitched no-hitters during the season. Kershaw won the NL Cy Young Award and the NL MVP Award, making him the first National League player to win both awards in the same season since Bob Gibson in 1968.
context_section_description: This season, Major League Baseball scheduled the Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks to open the season with a two-game series at the Sydney Cricket Ground in Australia. As a result, both teams began spring training earlier than usual and played abbreviated Cactus League schedules before flying to Australia for the series. Several members of the Dodgers organization expressed their dislike of the way the trip would impact their normal-preseason routine and their concern over the travel. As a result, the media started portraying the Dodgers in a negative light, contrasted with the Diamondbacks seemingly supportive stance on the trip. A few days before the start of the series, the Dodgers played an exhibition game against the Australian national baseball team.
  Clayton Kershaw made his fourth straight opening day start for the Dodgers, joining Don Drysdale, Don Sutton, Fernando Valenzuela and Ramón Martínez as the only Dodgers to do so. He allowed a run for the first time in 25 opening day innings, but still struck out seven in 6.2 innings for the 3–1 win. Scott Van Slyke homered and doubled to pace the offense. In the second game, Hyun-jin Ryu pitched five scoreless innings while striking out five. Yasiel Puig was 3 for 5 with an RBI double, Dee Gordon had three hits, an RBI and scored twice and Juan Uribe also had three hits and an RBI. The bullpen struggled and let the Diamondbacks get back into the game after trailing by seven runs, but the Dodgers won 7–5 to sweep the two game opening series.
caption: The Dodgers opened the season with a series at the Sydney Cricket Ground
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