The Boys in Blue have a red-hot start, beating Giants 2-1

With snow on the mountains beyond right field, and 85 degrees on the thermometer beneath a cloudless sky at Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles seemed to have gone straight from winter to summer in time for opening day of the baseball season Thursday.

Dodgers fans tried to shake off their gloom too for opening day, an occasion synonymous with optimism - founded or unfounded.

"I'm always optimistic," said Jo Michel, who claims to have attended every Dodgers opener since 1958, as she and friend Jane DeVore waited for the Dodgers and San Francisco Giants to take the field for a game the Dodgers won 2-1.

"I'm always hopeful," said Jennifer Kline, wearing a Dodgers jersey, who was there with her boyfriend Scott Nielson, clad in a Giants shirt. | Click here for more photos.

"I start out optimistic ...," said John Lopez, who watched the opener with his brother, David, and their sons, Joel, 12, and David Jr., 3.

None of these fans offered a specific case for high expectations this year. But the fact at least some in the sellout crowd of 56,000 were trying to look on the bright side might have come as a relief to the Dodgers' owner, or the Dodgers' owners, or wherever that situation

stands now.

The Dodgers are coming off a fourth-place finish. To win their division, they'll have to get past the Giants, who start the season as World Series champions for the first time since the rival clubs moved from New York to California in 1958.

Their chances of quickly upgrading their roster is complicated by owners Frank and Jamie McCourt's costly and distracting divorce battle.

What changes were made over the winter seemed unlikely to propel the Dodgers to immediate greatness.

This marked the debut of manager Don Mattingly, who replaced the retired Joe Torre and became the Dodgers' seventh dugout leader since Tommy Lasorda's retirement in 1996.

"I'm definitely excited," Mattingly, a 49-year-old former New York Yankees star, said to about two dozen reporters in the third-base dugout before the game. "I thought I'd be a little edgier, but I feel good."

Mattingly's lineup had two new faces - Tony Gwynn Jr., in left field, and Juan Uribe, a former Giant who moved from second to third base to fill in for injured Casey Blake. Mattingly said he chose the sharper-fielding Gwynn over harder-hitting newcomer Marcus Thames for left field because defense would be more valuable in the anticipated low-scoring game between Dodger and Giant aces Clayton Kershaw and Tim Lincecum.

Mattingly got at least the premise correct, as the pitchers took a scoreless duel to the sixth inning. The Dodgers scratched out single runs in the sixth and seventh and survived a Pat Burrell home run off Jonathan Broxton to win.

For connoisseurs of ballpark food, stands began serving the "Doyer Dog" ($8), a spicier version of the traditional Dodger Dog.

The game, too, had a different flavor. Begun at the in-between hour of 5 p.m. - to suit the ESPN television schedule - it was neither Opening Day nor a Hollywood Opening Night.

Many things didn't change: Vin Scully started his 62nd season calling play-by-play on TV and radio. Nancy Bea Hefley started her 24th season at the stadium organ. Dodger Stadium itself entered its 50th season.

Increasingly reliant on history for their identity after 22 seasons without a World Series, the Dodgers trotted out Fernando Valenzuela to throw the ceremonial first pitch 30 years after his opening-day splash, and wore a black patch on their right shoulders marking the recent death of Hall of Fame center fielder Duke Snider.

The Dodgers-Giants animosity was intact. Early in the game, a plane flew over the ballpark towing a banner reminding Dodgers fans of the Giants' championship. But not before another plane had carried a banner reminding the Giants that Los Angeles has won five World Series to San Francisco's one.

Introducing the visiting players and coaches, Dodger Stadium announcer Eric Smith made no mention of a championship, calling them "the National League West Division rival" Giants. They were booed.

David Lopez, a 29-year-old electrician who lives in Ventura, said seeing the Giants win the World Series was "a terrible feeling. I'm just sad I had to live through it."

For Michel, 81, a Palm Desert resident who started following the Dodgers with her late husband when their field-level season tickets cost $3.50 a game, the trouble isn't the Giants but the Dodgers' management.

"(Frank McCourt) does not seem committed to winning," added DeVore, 71, of Brentwood. "Once I saw (former Dodgers owner) Peter O'Malley at the store. I said, 'Oh, Peter, buy them back.' He just smiled."

But they were excited about the new season, both said.

"Yes!" Devore exclaimed. "It's a fun day. It really is."

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