NEW YORK – It was a long day in the Bronx anyway you look at it.
“Let’s see, it’s 10:30 (p.m.). I think I got here at 9 (a.m.) today,” Tommy Edman said after the Dodgers and New York Yankees put the split in a split-doubleheader that featured start times seven hours apart.
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“Watched a whole World Cup game. Yeah, it was a long day at the field.”
Yoshinobu Yamamoto did the heavy lifting in the first game, holding the Yankees to four hits while pitching his first (regular season) complete game as the Dodgers won, 8-2.
That was the ideal setup for the Dodgers’ planned ‘bullpen game’ in the nightcap. They had chosen to start Yamamoto in the early half of the doubleheader, counting on him to go deep in the game and save the bullpen arms for the second game.
Mission accomplished.
Both teams went with bullpen games in the nightcap. The gang warfare – 12 pitchers in all wore out a path from the bullpens to the mound – kept hitters on both sides frustrated until Evan Phillips broke the chain, giving up a solo home run to Jazz Chisholm Jr. in the eighth inning that gave the Yankees a 2-1 victory.
The Dodgers split the doubleheader but won two out of three in the series, holding the Yankees to just five runs on 18 hits.
Yamamoto only gave up four of those hits in his complete game. He handled the Yankees with such ease that he threw only 102 pitches to go nine innings, striking out seven and not walking a batter.
It was Yamamoto’s first MLB career complete game in the regular season – he threw two in the postseason last fall. It was the first regular-season complete game by a Dodgers pitcher since Gavin Stone’s four-hit shutout of the Chicago White Sox on June 26, 2024.
“When I was going into the game early on, I was not thinking about that today we have a doubleheader. I was just focusing on my own job,” Yamamoto said through his interpreter. “And then on a day like this, to be able to perform like this, that was a good thing.
“Being able to complete the game, the whole nine innings, that gives a little break for the bullpen. I would like to do that as much as I can, but not every game will go like this.”
Yamamoto retired the first nine Yankees in order (on just 28 pitches) before he fell behind 2-and-0 to Trent Grisham leading off the fourth inning. Yamamoto’s fastball got too much of the plate and Grisham drove it 402 feet into the second deck down the right field line for a solo home run.
Yamamoto just went back to business, retiring the next nine Yankees before giving up another hit. The Yankees got to him for another run in the eighth when Andy Pages lost a fly ball in the sun.
“He had really good command today. The fastball command, the cutter in on the lefties, the low dart, the split was really good today,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “He made the one mistake to Grisham where he tried to go back door and kind of yanked it a little bit – but outside of that, he was really good.”
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Young right-hander Cam Schlittler (the American League’s ERA leader) was supposed to be the other half of a marquee pitching matchup Sunday but the Dodgers didn’t allow him to live up to the billing.
Schlittler struck out the first four batters he faced and gave up just a lost-in-the-sun pop up for a double in the first two innings. But he threw 44 pitches to do it and the Dodgers kept grinding away at him. He only went 4⅓ innings thanks to a pitch count affected by severe inflation. He was gone after 98 pitches.
Tommy Edman scored three runs in the game, once when Shohei Ohtani torched a double 111.1 mph off the bat and to the wall in right-center field. Ohtani trotted home on his bad knee – which will prevent him from pitching indefinitely but not hitting – when Freddie Freeman dumped a two-out, two-strike RBI single into center field.
The Dodgers didn’t put the game away until the eighth inning when they scored five times against the Yankees’ bullpen.
Teoscar Hernandez drove in one when Schuemann tried to make a sliding catch on his line drive near the line. He came up empty and the ball hopped into the stands for a ground-rule double. Edman drove in two with a single and Ohtani one more with a single, then Edman scored for the third time in the game on a sacrifice fly by Freeman.
Edman was the Dodgers’ only offense in the second game.
After ‘opener’ Ryan Yarbrough retired the first eight Dodgers in order, Eliezer Alfonzo Jr. (his first major-league hit) and Ohtani had back-to-back singles with two outs in the third inning. But Pages flew out. They got the leadoff hitter on base in the fourth and fifth innings against Paul Blackburn. But double plays short-circuited both innings.
The Dodgers didn’t have another hit until Edman came off the bench to pinch-hit in the eighth inning. The second pitch from Fernando Cruz was a flat splitter at 80 mph. It went out at 102 mph, tying the game.
The Yankees didn’t fare much better against the Dodgers’ relief relay. They scored a run in the first inning off Will Klein but didn’t score again until the eighth inning.
Making just his fourth appearance since returning from Tommy John surgery, Phillips struck out Jasson Dominguez to start the eighth inning but Chisholm took a 97 mph fastball at the bottom of the strike zone the opposite way, clearing the wall in left-center field for the go-ahead home run.
“I think I just went to a pitch where I had less room for error,” Phillips said. “I’m trying to throw a strike in that situation, get back in the count. Jazz likes the ball, middle-down, down and in, and I was trying to go away, obviously. But it just crept back to the middle of the plate, somewhere he can handle it and put a good swing on it.
“I think I’m still just getting used to pitching in games again. … Rehab mindset is just to go out there and physically feel good. I tried to rewire that a little bit my final few games on my rehab stint, but you just can’t simulate the major-league environment, a major-league competition.”
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