The Dodgers schedule this week features a rare and valuable pairing for Los Angeles as two-time Cy Young Award winners Tarik Skubal and Blake Snell are set to start on back-to-back days against the Kansas City Royals, giving manager Dave Roberts a glimpse of the rotation he hopes to carry into October.
According to the Orange County Register, Skubal will take the mound Monday for his Dodger Stadium debut, followed by Snell on Tuesday in what will be just his second start of the 2026 season. Citing MLB statistician Sarah Langs, the Register reported that this marks only the 12th time in major league history that one team has fielded two pitchers who have each won multiple Cy Young Awards. Roberts called the situation "the ultimate luxury."
"On one side of it, you feel it as the home team because you feel the confidence of who you're running out there," Roberts said, according to the Register. "But on the other side, it seems daunting when you look at the probables and you see these Cy Young guys back-to-back. It's a lot to take in as an offense. So it feels really good to have those two guys on our side."
Snell's return, first reported by The Athletic's Fabian Ardaya and relayed by Yahoo Sports, comes after a season derailed by injury. He opened 2026 on the injured list with shoulder fatigue, made a single rocky start against Atlanta on May 9, and then went back on the IL, this time to have loose bodies removed from his pitching elbow, the same procedure Skubal underwent weeks earlier. True Blue LA confirmed Snell will be activated off the 60-day injured list for Tuesday's game, marking his first Dodgers start in three months.
While Skubal needed only 38 days to recover from the identical elbow procedure, according to Yahoo Sports, Snell's rehab took considerably longer. He began a rehab assignment on July 18 and made four minor league starts, most recently topping out at 73 pitches for the Triple-A Oklahoma City Comets, per Yahoo Sports.
Snell's slow starts to seasons have become something of a pattern. Yahoo Sports noted he carries a 4.00 career ERA in the first half of seasons compared to a 2.33 ERA in the second half, despite logging nearly equal innings in each split. Last year, Snell was a critical piece of the Dodgers' World Series championship run, posting a 3.18 ERA across six postseason appearances, five as a starter plus one relief outing in the Game 7 clincher.
For Skubal, Tuesday's matchup in Los Angeles will be only his second start since being acquired at the trade deadline. His first, at Wrigley Field against the Cubs, drew a loud and repeated chorus of boos from Chicago fans, something he embraced rather than shrugged off.
"Great atmosphere. The Cubs' fan base is awesome," Skubal said afterward, according to the Register. "It's a ton of fun to play in front of. And whether they're rooting against you or for you, I love the fans. The fans are what create the environment... I'm sure that's not going to be the only rowdy atmosphere on the road. I plan on pitching in front of those atmospheres for the rest of the season."
Monday's Dodgers schedule lists Skubal, now 7-6 with a 2.81 ERA, opposite Kansas City left-hander Noah Cameron, who is 6-8 with a 4.37 ERA. The game is set for a 7:10 p.m. first pitch at Dodger Stadium, broadcast on SportsNet LA and heard on AM 570. Tuesday's contest against the Royals will send Snell to the mound opposite Kansas City's Michael Wacha, also at Dodger Stadium and 7:10 p.m., with Spanish-language radio coverage added on KTNQ 1020 AM, according to True Blue LA.
The timing matters beyond this single series. Los Angeles has leaned on fill-in starters such as Eric Lauer and Emmet Sheehan, who was optioned to the minors earlier this week, while waiting for its front-line arms to return. With Skubal and Snell now folded in alongside Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Dodgers' postseason rotation is beginning to take its expected shape. Roberts indicated the fourth spot will likely go to either Shohei Ohtani or Tyler Glasnow, both of whom are working their way back from injury.
Glasnow, sidelined since early May with lower-back spasms, has already begun a rehab assignment, according to the Register, throwing two scoreless innings for Class-A Ontario before moving up to Triple-A Oklahoma City. Ohtani, who has not pitched in games since the first half of the season because of knee discomfort, played catch in the outfield out to roughly 90 feet before Saturday's game, the first step in a throwing progression. Roberts cautioned that Ohtani's path back to the mound remains fluid. "It's a day-to-day thing with Shohei," he said, adding there is no specific target date for Ohtani to throw a bullpen session.
Roberts framed the return of healthy starters as central to the Dodgers' championship blueprint. "Now we've got Blake back. We've got Tarik here. We feel like we have the pieces of our starting pitching to go on a run," he said, according to the Register. "But you've also got to play good defense behind them; we've got to score runs. But it does feel like every night, we should have a good chance to win a ballgame."
The Dodgers rode four starters, Yamamoto, Ohtani, Glasnow and Snell, to last year's World Series title, and Roberts said adding Skubal only strengthens that foundation heading toward the stretch run. "I think you have to win with starting pitching. You really do," he said. "I know in '24 we did it a different way, but starting pitching is kind of your backbone. To have those guys, regular season, postseason, that's a good foundation."
Apart from pitching, the Register noted the Dodgers entered Sunday leading Major League Baseball in batting average at .261, on-base percentage at .339 and OPS at .768, yet they had also grounded into more double plays than any other team, 98 total. Roberts attributed the issue partly to the team simply putting more runners on base than anyone else, combined with an aging position-player group that ranks 28th in stolen bases with just 45. He pushed back on the idea that age alone explains the trend, instead pointing to hitters' approach with runners on first base. "My thought is our guys need to do a better job at understanding what the pitcher is trying to do," Roberts said.
