The Los Angeles Dodgers handled the San Francisco Giants 5-1 on March 18, 2026, at Camelback Ranch, a result the DiamondIQ model's estimate found entirely unsurprising as its pre-game home win probability of 57 percent climbed steadily to 100 percent by the final out. Los Angeles scored twice in the first inning to establish early control, added a run in the third, and tacked on two more in the seventh, while San Francisco managed its lone run in the eighth. The Giants finished with four hits and no errors, but the damage was done long before the late innings.
The game's single most consequential moment came in the bottom of the third, when Freddie Freeman connected for a home run off Landen Roupp, a swing that shifted win probability 7.8 percentage points in the Dodgers' favor and effectively set the tone for the afternoon. Nick Senzel extended the lead in the seventh with a home run off Trevor McDonald, adding 4.8 percentage points to Los Angeles's win probability. On the other side of the ledger, San Francisco's offense quietly collapsed in sequence: Will Brennan's strikeout in the second cost the Giants 5.8 percentage points of win probability, and both Patrick Bailey's strikeout in the third and Jerar Encarnacion's ground into a double play in the fourth each subtracted another 5.0 percentage points, compounding the deficit before the middle innings were complete.
The performance that most defined the afternoon belonged to Shohei Ohtani, who posted an extraordinary 18.1 percentage points of win probability added on the mound, the clearest individual driver of the outcome by that measure. Freeman led all batters at plus-7.7 percent WPA, while Senzel's plus-1.6 RE24 was the highest run-environment contribution among position players. Will Klein and Blake Treinen added 5.0 and 2.8 percentage points of win probability, respectively, in support. The DiamondIQ model leans toward Dodgers pitching as the decisive factor in a game that was never truly contested after the third inning.
Analysis generated by DiamondIQ's model.