Whatever you want to say about the Yankees, so far this season, they’ve been fairly resilient in responding from setbacks. Their longest losing streak to this point has only been three games, and it had been nearly a month since they had dropped more than one game in a row. Their second game of the series against the Dodgers was a very notable exception.
Having lost the series opener in disappointing fashion, having blown a lead after being in control for much of the game, this one was just an all out mauling. The Dodgers jumped all over Will Warren early, scoring four runs in the first and knocking him out after just 1.1 innings.
Things didn’t really change much against the Yankees’ bullpen, either. Not that the offense had a particularly sterling day, but they didn’t have much of a chance after going down big early. In the end, the Dodgers demolished the Yankees, beating them 18-2.
Like last night, the Dodgers scored early, although this time without the Yankees having taken the lead first. The Dodgers’ offense came out swinging against Warren early, with four of the first five batters recording hits, with Will Smith and Max Muncy each driving home a run. After walking Andy Pages in a nine-pitch at-bat, Warren allowed a sacrifice fly to Michael Conforto, and then got semi-unlucky when Jorbit Vivas couldn’t handle a Tommy Edman hot shot, allowing it to go for a double and another run. Warren finally got out of the inning shortly after that, but the Yankees were already in a sizable hole.
The next inning only made things worse. A couple more walks brought Muncy to the plate with two runners on, and he swiftly ended Warren’s day. He took the Yankees’ starter deep for a three-run shot.
In recording just four outs, Warren allowed seven runs on six hits and four walks. Brent Headrick replaced him and allowed another couple runs, including a homer to Hyeseong Kim, as the Yankees ended the inning down double digits.
The Yankees finally showed some semblance of something in this game in the fourth. Aaron Judge led off the inning with his 20th home run of the season, and his second in as many games.
That brief respite didn’t last particularly long, though. In the fifth inning, the Dodgers picked up four more hits, culminating in Muncy homering for the second time of the day. Another three-run shot meant the extra point was good and the Dodgers were up to 14 runs. After that, they gave things a brief break, but Pages later added a solo shot in the seventh.
The last couple innings didn’t provide a ton of interesting things. Judge added another homer, but outside of that, the only drama was about which Yankee position player would be tasked with trying to eat up some outs late, as the combination of Brent Headrick, Ian Hamilton, Mark Leiter Jr., Yerry De los Santos, Devin Williams, and Luke Weaver had been tasked with covering much of the ballgame for New York. Pablo Reyes was the answer to that question, and he ended up getting dinged with a couple runs for the road, including a homer by Dalton Rushing, the first of his career.
LA themselves went with a position player for the ninth, bringing on Kiké Hernández. Jasson Domínguez got him for a double, but that was the extent of it, as the Dodgers finished off their blowout win.
After all that, the Yankees will now hope to avoid the sweep in tomorrow’s series finale. The unexpectedly excellent Ryan Yarbrough—likely backed up at least one fresh arm, if not two—will be tasked with that challenge on the mound, as he goes opposite Yoshinobu Yamamoto for the Dodgers. This is another nationally televised contest, live on ESPN at 7:10pm ET.