Final score: Dodgers 2, Yankees 1, in front of 46,450 at the Stadium on a warm one -- 81 degrees, breeze blowing out to center, the kind of night that makes a fly ball nervous. Take away one 2-2 slider from Gerrit Cole in the seventh, and the Yankees probably win this one. They didn't, and now they're down 0-1 in the season's only meeting between these two clubs.
Cole was pumping through the Dodgers' lineup all night -- eight strikeouts, one walk, four hits, 103 pitches -- when Mookie Betts drew a full-count walk to open the seventh. Two pitches later, Max Muncy got one to hang and put it into the right-field seats. 416 feet, 107.9 mph off the bat, 31-degree launch. Two runs. Ballgame, basically.
The Long Ball That Decided It
There's no dressing this one up. Cole was cruising -- six innings, eight punchouts, just the one walk -- and then Betts reached and Muncy made him pay. It was Muncy's 18th homer of the season, and by win probability it was the single biggest swing of the night, worth 31 points toward the Dodgers on one pitch.
(Small mercy: it's the only homer either team hit all game. Cole's final line -- 6.0 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 8 SO -- reads like a win most nights. Friday it read like a loss, his fifth of the year against three wins.)
Cole Was Everything but Perfect
Go inning by inning and Cole's stuff was there the whole way. Twenty-three batters faced through six, and 66 of his 103 pitches went for strikes. That's not a guy who got rocked. That's a guy who threw one bad slider to a hitter who doesn't miss bad sliders.
He took the loss anyway (that's baseball). One pitch out of 103 decided it, and it happened to land in a Dodgers lineup that doesn't need many mistakes to make you pay. Behind him, Paul Blackburn, Brent Headrick, and Fernando Cruz combined for three scoreless innings out of the pen, which would've meant a lot more if the offense had found one more run somewhere.
The Martian's One-Man Show
The Yankees' only run came from Jasson Domínguez doing it himself. The Martian ripped a double to center in the fourth, then turned it into third base when Dodgers center fielder Andy Pages botched the play. The very next batter, with Jazz Chisholm Jr. up, Domínguez read a passed ball off Roki Sasaki and walked home before anyone in a Dodgers uniform noticed. Unearned run, sure. Still the only run the Yankees put on the board.
That's the whole offensive highlight reel. Ryan McMahon added a double of his own and Trent Grisham drew a pair of walks, one off Sasaki and one off the Dodgers pen, but nobody could turn any of it into more runners crossing the plate. Six hits, no home runs, and the Yanks left six men on base for the night.
Sasaki, Then the Bridge
Give Sasaki his due too. Five and two-thirds innings, five hits, one unearned run, five strikeouts, and he got out of enough trouble to hand a one-run game to the Dodgers pen. Jack Dreyer worked around traffic for the win, Alex Vesia bridged the eighth, and Tanner Scott slammed the door in the ninth for his 14th save. Three relievers, three and a third shutout innings, and the Bombers never got the big swing back.
The Yankees are 54-43 now, second place in the AL East, 2.5 back with a one-game skid to open this stretch. Not a crisis. Just a series they need games two and three to salvage, and both come at home before the Dodgers head back out west.
Go get the next one.
Jimmy writes the Bronx Pinstripes game recap after every Yankees game. Beat-reporter pacing, fan's heartbeat. He calls opposing players by last name and has no patience for dead-air innings.
