Gavin Williams dominates in seven scoreless innings, Jose Ramirez homers as Guardians finish successful road trip to open season

LOS ANGELES — The Guardians are coming home winners. Of the series finale vs. the Dodgers and the season-opening road trip to the West Coast. Gavin Williams struck out 10 in seven scoreless innings, outpitching World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and José Ramírez hit his first home run of the season to lead the Guardians past the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-1 on Wednesday. "It's just amazing how he comes through when we need him," manager Stephen Vogt said of Ramirez. Gabriel Arias also went deep for the Guardians, who took two of three games in the series from the two-time defending champions. Cleveland split a four-game series with Seattle, which went to the ALCS last year, to open the season. The Guardians are 4-3 heading into the home opener Friday against the Cubs. "It was a really good road trip for us," Vogt said. Williams (1-1) walked three and allowed only two hits, both singles by Andy Pages. Freddie Freeman homered off Cade Smith with two outs in the ninth, spoiling Cleveland's shutout bid. Williams overpowered the Dodgers from the outset and faced just one batter more than the minimum through five innings. He ran into his only trouble in the sixth when Pages led off with a single and Alex Freeland worked a walk to bring Shohei Ohtani to the plate as the potential go-ahead run. The 6-foot-6 right-hander induced a grounder from Ohtani on the first pitch for a 4-6-3 double play and got Kyle Tucker to fly out to end the inning. Williams completed his night with a perfect seventh, punctuated by striking out Will Smith swinging on an elevated 96 mph fastball. Ohtani also struck out against left-hander Erik Sabrowski with runners at second and third to end the eighth. Ohtani went 0-for-3 with a walk, extending his on-base streak to a career-best 37 games since August. "He's confident and he can pitch," Vogt said of Sabrowski. "He's got three very good pitches, the fastball's the best obviously, and the league knows that. To execute three straight sliders in that moment, just kinda take all the momentum out of the building, that was huge." Yamamoto (1-1) pitched six innings, allowing four hits and two runs. He walked one and struck out two. The loss dampened a historic night for the Dodgers, who became the first team to start a Japanese-born pitcher in three consecutive games. Roki Sasaki took the ball in the series opener and Ohtani won the middle game. Up next LHP Joey Cantillo (0-0) starts Cleveland's home opener Friday against the Chicago Cubs. Dodgers RHP Emmet Sheehan (0-0) starts the opener of a three-series at Washington on Friday.