Jack Flaherty will start for Dodgers in World Series opener against Gerrit Cole and Yankees

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jack Flaherty will start for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series opener against the New York Yankees and Gerrit Cole on Friday night at Dodger Stadium in a matchup of area natives.

Flaherty is from nearby Burbank and attended high school at Harvard-Westlake in Los Angeles. Cole is from Tustin in Orange County and pitched at UCLA.

“There's no bigger stage than this and it's what we all wanted as kids and the position we wanted to be in,” Flaherty said Tuesday during a Zoom news conference. “It's just going to be an incredible matchup.”

Flaherty will be cheered by his mother, Eileen, who adopted him days after his birth, as well as other family members and friends.

“They always remind me at the end of the day that it's never as big of a situation as everybody else is going to make it seem,” the 29-year-old right-hander said.

Right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the $325 million rookie, will start Game 2 on Saturday, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. The Dodgers also plan a bullpen game during the best-of-seven series.

The Yankees tried to obtain Flaherty from the Detroit Tigers ahead of the July trade deadline, but couldn't agree on prospects. Instead, he went to his hometown team and the stadium where he attended games as a Little League player.

Speaking after the deadline, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman would not directly address a report by The Athletic that the Yankees backed away from a trade over medical concerns.

“There's more to all that with the deadline that I've just have kind of held onto,” Flaherty said. “Things turned out the way that they did and we're here, we're with LA. I'm happy for the situation that I'm in.”

Flaherty has started three times in these playoffs with a 7.04 ERA. He dominated in Game 1 of the NL Championship Series against the New York Mets, allowing two hits over seven innings.

Then he struggled in Game 5 of the NLCS, giving up eight earned runs and four walks in three innings as he experienced drops in velocity and spin rate. Afterward, Roberts said the pitcher had been feeling under the weather.

“That's a lesson to be learned,” Roberts said. “That's another experienced moment for him that I think can kind of help him in this series. We weathered it. I think he's healthy now and he'll spit out a good one on Friday.”

Flaherty re-watched that game and felt it sped up on him.

“I was multiple times one pitch away from getting out of it, where it's still either 3-1 or 5-1 instead of it getting to 8-1,” he said. “It was right there and if we can control a couple more things than be in a little bit of a better spot.”

Three years ago, Flaherty was in the ballpark at Houston to watch high school teammate Max Fried win the World Series clincher for Atlanta. Now Flaherty will be pitching in a World Series opener.

“It's an opportunity to go out and set the tone and make some adjustments after the last game that I had," he said, “and be able to set us up for kind of the rest of the series.”

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Los Angeles Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani and pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto watch during the sixth inning in Game 6 of a baseball NL Championship Series against the New York Mets, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto throws against the New York Mets during the first inning in Game 4 of a baseball NL Championship Series, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Jack Flaherty, left, is greeted by Shohei Ohtani as he returns to the dugout during the seventh inning in Game 1 of a baseball NL Championship Series against the New York Mets, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Jack Flaherty throws against the New York Mets during the first inning in Game 5 of a baseball NL Championship Series, Friday, Oct. 18, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

A Ukrainian drone strike killed one person and wounded three others in the Russian city of Voronezh, local officials said Sunday.

A young woman died overnight in a hospital intensive care unit after debris from a drone fell on a house during the attack on Saturday, regional Gov. Alexander Gusev said on Telegram.

Three other people were wounded and more than 10 apartment buildings, private houses and a high school were damaged, he said, adding that air defenses shot down 17 drones over Voronezh. The city is home to just over 1 million people and lies some 250 kilometers (155 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

The attack came the day after Russia bombarded Ukraine with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles overnight into Friday, killing at least four people in the capital Kyiv, according to Ukrainian officials.

For only the second time in the nearly four-year war, Russia used a powerful new hypersonic missile that struck western Ukraine in a clear warning to Kyiv and NATO.

The intense barrage and the launch of the nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile followed reports of major progress in talks between Ukraine and its allies on how to defend the country from further aggression by Moscow if a U.S.-led peace deal is struck.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday in his nightly address that Ukrainian negotiators “continue to communicate with the American side.”

Chief negotiator Rustem Umerov was in contact with U.S. partners Saturday, he said.

Separately, Ukraine’s General Staff said Russia targeted Ukraine with 154 drones overnight into Sunday and 125 were shot down.

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

This photo provided by the Ukrainian Security Service on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, shows a fragment believed to be a part of a Russian Oreshnik intermediate range hypersonic ballistic missile that hit the Lviv region. (Ukrainian Security Service via AP)

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, second left, listens to British Defense Secretary John Healey during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)