Edwin Diaz makes successful return, rookie Josue De Paula strong for Dodgers in win

That’s one way to start off the last homestand of the regular season.

Forget the fact that it was against the lowly San Francisco Giants and their lineup featuring a who’s who of … “Who?” Forget the fact that five of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ runs in their dominant 8-2 win on Friday night came off the relatively unknown Philip Abner. The Dodgers’ lineup, without Shohei Ohtani, showed exactly what they’re capable of offensively.

This is the version of the team Andrew Friedman envisioned when he signed Kyle Tucker to a four-year, $240 million contract and Edwin Díaz to a three-year, $69 million deal last winter.

Here’s a look at three winners from the Dodgers’ victory over the Giants:

The Dodgers lineup is just fine

Mookie Betts started things off when he jumped on a low-90s fastball that San Francisco starter Cesar Perdomo left middle-middle and sent it over the fence in left center field for his 33rd leadoff home run as a Dodger. The bats went quiet briefly from there until the bottom of the fifth when Teoscar Hernández singled home Josue De Paula from third on a sharp liner to right field to tie the game at 2-2.

The rookie De Paula later drove in the go-ahead run on an RBI double in the sixth before a monster five-run eighth inning in which Max Muncy, Tucker, Betts and Will Smith all went yard to put the game out of reach.

Edwin Díaz looked good in return from IL

That set the stage for the trumpets to once again blare over the Dodger Stadium loudspeakers. Manager Dave Roberts said he wouldn’t have put Díaz in if it wasn’t for the six-run lead as he wanted to give Díaz some leeway in his first outing back from an IL stint after health and poor performance have plagued his season.

But Díaz took the opportunity and ran with it. In his first big league appearance since Aug. 17, he got two quick outs before giving up a base hit up the middle. Rather than let that snowball like it has many times in 2026, however, Díaz was able to buckle down and strike out Brett Harris on three pitches to seal a Dodgers win.

Josue De Paula is different

The through line for the offense on Friday night was the 21-year-old De Paula. The No. 6 prospect in baseball according to MLB Pipeline finished the night 2-for-3 with a walk, two runs and an RBI, but it was the timing of each of those that made his Dodger Stadium debut so special.

De Paula led off the bottom of the fifth with a base hit, which Betts followed up with one of his own before he eventually scored the tying run on Hernández’s RBI single. Two innings later, he scored Tucker from first on a double that he put on a rope at 107 mph deep into the right field gap. As he reached second, De Paula pounded his chest and flexed.

Then, in that huge eighth inning, it was De Paula who kept it alive by working a four-pitch walk with two outs, his seventh in a week in the big leagues. Five pitches later, Betts blew the game open with a two-run homer.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Edwin Diaz makes successful return, rookie Josue De Paula strong for Dodgers in win