LOS ANGELES >> Jack Flaherty came clean Friday night.

After weeks of downplaying his return to Dodger Stadium and the insanity of having to face the team he helped get to and win the World Series on ring ceremony night in his season debut with the Tigers, he finally was able to exhale and admit that this one was, well, a lot.

“Yeah, I downplayed it to family and friends, for sure,” he said after pitching 5.2 strong innings against his former mates in what ended up an 8-5, 10-inning Tigers loss. “I downplayed it a bunch. But I knew. I knew.”

He went through his usual pre-game routine in the outfield, in front of the Tigers’ bullpen, as, one by one, every Dodgers’ player, coach and manager was called up onto a podium in the middle of the infield by actor Anthony Anderson to receive their jewelry.

Flaherty, who is expected to have his own ring ceremony before the game Saturday, watched part of the show as he stretched.

“Your routine is your routine,” Flaherty said. “You are going to stick to it and stay on task with everything. I knew the ceremony was going to go on. It didn’t really get in the way of anything.”

Except to heighten the intensity and fuel emotions that were already roiling inside. L.A. kid comes home, helps his hometown Dodgers roll into and through the playoffs and then is basically told by the team, “Thanks, good luck in free agency, we wish you the best in your next job.”

And there he is, five months later, in his first start back with the Tigers, an outsider watching first the banner celebration on Thursday and now the ring ceremony less than an hour before he had to try to beat them.

Which is why his heart soared when he saw Tarik Skubal, Casey Mize, Reese Olson and Jackson Jobe, the other members of the Tigers’ rotation, come strolling out toward the bullpen to be there for him.

“The other starters always come out and watch (my bullpen),” Flaherty said. “And I told them I really appreciated them coming out as early as they did tonight. It settled me down and reminded me that everything was normal.”

Or, normal as it could possibly be for what he described as an “out-of-bodyish experience.”

“I don’t think it was so much heart rate and adrenaline, but more the emotion of just everything, of being back,” he said.

Flaherty walked Shohei Ohtani to start his first inning, missing badly on four straight pitches. But when he got the next hitter, Mookie Betts, to slap into a fast, 4-3 double-play, he could feel his feet on the ground again.

“It kind of felt like the very first time being back in this stadium in 2018 (with the Cardinals),” Flaherty said. “Where it was just emotion, almost out-of-bodyish. After the first four to Shohei weren’t even close, I was able to get back and make a pitch to Mookie and kind of get into a normal rhythm.”

And by normal rhythm, he meant utterly locked in. He allowed only three hits with five strikes in those 5.2 innings. He set down 11 straight hitters after the walk to Ohtani and didn’t give up a hit until Tommy Edman’s broken-bat dunker in the fifth.

The fifth was the first, and really only time Flaherty was in a jam. He walked Teoscar Hernandez to start the inning and then gave up the one-out single to Edman. Second baseman Gleyber Torres made a heady deke on the hit, fooling Hernandez enough to keep him from going first to third.

It was a big play because Flaherty then induced what looked like an inning-double-play from Michael Conforto. Except, Colt Keith, new to the position at first base, seemed to come off the back too quickly instead of stretching to catch the throw from second.

Flaherty compounded the mess by hitting Andy Pages to load the bases.

“I thought Ding (catcher Dillon Dingler) did a really good job navigating me through there,” Flaherty said.

Flaherty got Austin Barnes to fly out to right to end the inning and keep the Tigers’ lead at 2-0.

He was an economical 70 pitches and about to face the top of the Dodgers’ lineup for a third time in the sixth.

He got Ohtani to ground out, but Betts singled and then Flaherty made the one pitch out of the 83 he threw that he wants back.

He left a first-pitch slider up and over the plate to Freddie Freeman. Boom. Freeman, with that picture-perfect left-handed swing of his, launched it 411 feet over the wall in left center, tying the game and putting some smudge on a brilliant outing by Flaherty.

“He was incredible,” manager AJ Hinch said. “I know tonight was important for him and for us and I thought he pitched very well. He adjusted his plan a little bit and I thought he had pretty much every pitch at some point and he was in complete control.”

It seemed clear early that the Dodgers were expecting to see a lot of Flaherty’s slider and he obliged throwing seven of them to the first five hitters. Then he switched gears.

“I don’t know the numbers but it felt like I threw a lot of fastballs,” Flaherty said. “I was getting ahead with it and executing with it. Maybe it was a little different from the game plan they were expecting but I was able to use the heater effectively.”

Flaherty threw 39 four-seam fastballs, hitting 95.7 mph and sitting 93.6, and he was locating them expertly. He still threw 22 sliders and 15 knuckle-curves and ended up getting 11 whiffs on 36 swings — four whiffs on nine knuckle-curves and the Dodgers ended up looking at nine fastballs for called strikes.

“I love how Jack came out today,” Hinch said. “All of the distractions, all the emotions that come back with this start, and he was pretty dialed in.”

When Freeman went back out to play first base in the top of the seventh, Flaherty started pelting him with bubble gum from the dugout. Both guys laughed.

“We’re competitors and what-not but I have a good relationship with him,” Flaherty said. “I got him the first two times and he’s a tough guy to get out a third time and he put a good swing on a ball. Just friendly competition.”

What will stick with Flaherty long after the adrenaline wears off, though, was the loud and earnest ovation he got from Dodgers fans as he walked back to the dugout in the sixth.

“Unexpected,” he said. “Very much unexpected, especially in the game and the way to was going. It was a tight game. Very unexpected and it means a lot. Growing up here and spending a lot of time here — yeah, it was special.”