Gerrit Cole never threw a pitch trailing in this game. Yet he was on the hook for a fifth loss—wasting what was a magnificent outing—because the Yankees offense failed to score more than one (unearned) run against Roki Sasaki and the Dodgers bullpen to prevent a 2-1 defeat. One mistake by the Yankees starter against Max Muncy, who hit a two-run blast in the seventh inning, accounted for all of the opposition’s scoring in this low-scoring affair. Cole’s pitching line before then was six scoreless innings with three hits, eight strikeouts, and no walks. Alas, that was not how it ended.
Anyone who came into this game with thoughts of a slugfest, given the recent hiccups of both starters, was left somewhat surprised by the efficiency of both of them. Neither allowed a single hit with a runner in scoring position, not that there were even that many types of chances for each team.
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It’s a given that with the quality of these offenses, an opportunity or two will arise, but when it did, both Cole and Sasaki handled it reasonably well. Ryan McMahon began the third inning with an automatic double, and a couple of batters later the Yankees had two on and one out as Trent Grisham worked a hard-fought walk. The excitement of this scenario ended as quickly as it came to fruition, with Ben Rice hitting into a double play on the first pitch of his at-bat. One inning earlier, the Dodgers had been the team wasting their chance with a runner in scoring position as Dalton Rushing stranded a pair with a strikeout swinging.
Unable to put rallies together, each team had to get creative about getting on the board. They both took advantage of opposition mistakes but went about it very differently. The Yankees pounced on defensive miscues to open the scoring in the bottom of the fourth. Andy Pages misplayed a two-out double from Jasson Domínguez, allowing the Martian to move to third on the error. Sasaki would retire the following hitter, but not before a wild pitch allowed Domínguez to come across and score.
The Yankees could’ve given Cole some cushion in the sixth, when once again they put two men on against Sasaki. Seeing what Domínguez had done against the Dodgers starter earlier in the game, Dave Roberts went to the left-hander Jack Dreyer, who punched out Domínguez looking on a curve.
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That moment would loom large in the following frame because that’s when the Dodgers pounced on a different kind of mistake: a mistake pitch. Cole had given Aaron Boone every reason to try to push him for one more frame, a move that did not ultimately work out. Mookie Betts worked a leadoff walk to start the seventh (Cole’s first free pass of the night), and for any other Yankee starter, that would’ve been the end of the line, but not for Cole. Boone walked to the mound and only talked to his starter, letting the veteran keep going—in a tiring at-bat, after three Muncy foul balls, Cole fed him a slider with far too much off the plate, leading to a no-doubt shot, well over 400 feet out to right field.
One subplot of this game was Ohtani’s continued struggles at Yankee Stadium. He came into the game hitting .136 in the Bronx and delivered yet another oh-fer, which included stranding a runner in the eighth, wasting a chance to pad the Dodgers’ lead.
Dreyer stayed in the game after retiring Domínguez, and once again managerial decisions came into play, as Boone opted not to pinch-hit for McMahon with two outs in the seventh and a lefty-lefty matchup. McMahon was 1-for-2, and the Yankees had three lefties following him; McMahon popped out. It turns out that Boone was saving Amed Rosario for the eighth, as he then pinch-hit for Austin Wells against another lefty, Alex Vesia.
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It was in that eighth inning that the Yankees had and wasted their best chance to get back in the game. The same defensive impact that handed the Yankees a run earlier in the game came on the opposite side to take one away from them. Grisham worked his second great walk of the game, this one against Vesia, and this time Ben Rice delivered with a ball in the gap that looked like it’d tie things up.
Grisham, however, did not get the best of jumps on it, and he was nailed at the plate with Pages linking up with Mookie Betts to nab the Yankee’ center fielder.
One could quibble with Yankees third-base coach Luis Rojas’ decision to send Grisham despite the poor jump and 32nd-percentile sprint speed, even with Mookie perfectly executing a hard play to coordinate the brilliant relay throw home. Would Paul Goldschmidt or Cody Bellinger have stranded him on third with one out anyway? We’ll never know, though Bellinger had a chance to plate a run anyway after an intentional walk to Goldschmidt; he hit a lazy fly to center.
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Tanner Scott tossed a clean ninth, and that was the ballgame.
The Yankees’ hitters better wake up with a better mindset tomorrow, as they face Emmet Sheehan before being tasked with Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Sunday. They’ll also need Ryan Weathers to put in a good effort as well against Sheehan, and it might very well be Weathers’ toughest test yet as a Yankee. Assuming the weather holds off, first pitch will be at 8:08pm ET on Fox.
