LOS ANGELES — Thursday’s home opener at Dodger Stadium provided a reminder of the larger scale in which the Dodgers are operating since signing Shohei Ohtani, the biggest star in the sport. Amid all the pomp and circumstance, the team put on a good show from start to finish.

A full house is expected for the home opener, and Dodgers fans delivered, packing 52,667 into Dodger Stadium for the first game in Los Angeles. But it wasn’t just the crowd that was lively, and plentiful. The sheer volume of press covering the game — writers, photographers, television reports, and the like — felt like the size usually reserved for a League Championship Series or maybe even a World Series.

There were a plethora of stories to cover, including the Dodgers big three of Mookie Betts, Ohtani, and Freddie Freeman overwhelming the Cardinals in a 7-1 win. But before the game was cool, too.

Dodgers players and manager Dave Roberts were introduced pregame with the standard lining up along the foul lines, truly one of my favorite parts of baseball. But they all entered from center field, and traversed a blue carpet to get to the infield. “I got my steps in,” Roberts joked.

The ceremonial first pitch was thrown by Adrían Beltré, the third baseman who was elected on the first ballot to the Hall of Fame in January and will be inducted into Cooperstown in July. Beltré played the first seven seasons of his career with the Dodgers, and has been a frequent visitor to Dodger Stadium in recent years, even if it’s just taking in a game from the stands. He provides a good rubric for the Dodgers maintaining a functional relationship with a Hall of Famer who got away. It isn’t always that easy.

Beltré threw his first pitch to Clayton Kershaw, who got a great ovation from the crowd when he was introduced and made the blue carpet trek a few minutes earlier.

Roberts in his three seasons with the Dodgers as a player was a teammate of Beltré, which added another connection to the Thursday festivities.

“Looking back to 2002 to see that this is where we’d be right now, I would not have guessed it,” Roberts said. “Me watching his first pitch to Clayton Kershaw was crazy, with Clayton going out to catch the first pitch. That’s two first-ballot Hall of Famers right there.

“I was lucky enough to play with Adríán, and to get him here at the game was a lot of fun. I’ve been around some great players, and he’s right there at the top of the list.”

The real first pitch of the game was thrown by Tyler Glasnow, who only needed 80 more to finish his six innings. He allowed only two hits and one run, and struck out five. Glasnow induced eight swinging strikes on only 14 swings off his slider.

“The slider was working well today. I think that, for the most part, was my best pitch. The heater and curveball wasn’t great, but came on in the end,” Glasnow said. “For the most part, I was able to throw strikes and stay in the game.”

After Glasnow’s sixth inning, the Dodgers added an insurance run in the bottom of the frame, which paved the way for Ryan Yarbrough to finish things off. The left-hander retired nine of his 10 batters faced to earn a three-inning save.

The pairing with Glasnow, his former teammate with the Rays, made for an extreme contrast in styles. The right-handed Glasnow averaged 96.4 mph on his fastball and 90.7 mph on his slider, with those two pitches accounting for 85 percent of his offerings on Thursday. In came the southpaw Yarbrough averaging 86 mph on his two-seam fastball while mixing in a 76-mph curve.

“It’s a really good match, with completely opposite styles of pitching,” Yarbrough said.