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The Dodgers return home, but on the road in Anaheim, CA, to face their crosstown rivals of the Freeway Series, the Los Angeles Angels

The Dodgers and Angels met for the first time, albeit in an unofficial capacity, in 1962. That meeting came in the form of an exhibition game hosted at the Angels’ spring training home in what was just their second year as a franchise. The two clubs met for a two-game exhibition series the following year at Dodger Stadium, which served as the home field for both teams from 1962 until 1965 when the Angels got their own stadium in Anaheim. Somewhat surprisingly, it was the expansion Angels who won all three of those exhibition games.

While the Angels got the better of the Dodgers in the first three exhibition games that the two LA rivals played against one another, the Dodgers got the jump when the games started to matter. The team in blue won all four games between them during the 1997 season. However, the Dodgers’ dominance over their Freeway Series rivals would be short-lived. Over the next 15 seasons, the Angels won the season series nine times, with the Dodgers only winning the series twice.

Even when the Dodgers became one of the pre-eminent teams in the majors during the 2010s, winning every NL West division title from 2013 to 2020, they still didn’t have the Angel’s number. Between 2010 and 2020, the Angels took the season series from the Dodgers five times, with the Dodgers only beating up on the Halos three times during those 11 years. Of course, during the shortened 2020 season, the Dodgers won all six head-to-head meetings between the Dodgers and Angels on their way to winning the 2020 World Series.