LOS ANGELES — It was a loud night. Pregame performance by LA legend Ice Cube. The ball bounced off the Dodgers’ bats. A standing ovation for Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Huge center field speakers blast party music in a festive atmosphere.
All the hustle and bustle of Game 2 disappeared when Shohei Ohtani injured his left shoulder on a failed seventh-inning steal and lay on the ground in obvious pain. The Dodger Stadium crowd quickly quieted down, but it got very tense when the Yankees nearly came back in the ninth inning. But with an injury to their iconic designated hitter weighing on them, the Dodgers were able to capitalize on Freddie Freeman’s enthusiasm from the night before with a 4-2 win on Saturday night, and they won 2-0 in this great game. We were able to obtain an overwhelming advantage of 0. of seven fall classics.
Freeman was still recovering from a sprained right ankle, but this time he was deep again, with the help of NLCS MVP Tommy Edman and All-Star Teoscar Hernandez, and Yamamoto’s one hit over 6 1/3 innings. I went there. The party fell silent when Ohtani collapsed, and everyone was on the edge of their seats when the Yankees scored an RBI in the ninth inning to load the bases. But the Dodgers defended their home base.
“I’m not going to lose in front of my home crowd,” said Freeman, who is in pole position for MVP honors. “You want to get a win early, but you’re going to be in a tough position to play in.”
If Ohtani leaves, the situation may become even more difficult. But after the win, the Dodgers were optimistic that Ohtani’s shoulder subluxation could be fixed.
“He will be tested at some point tonight or tomorrow, and we will know more in the next few days,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “But the strength was great. The range of motion, good. So we’re encouraged.”
In all best-of-seven postseason series, the team with a 2-0 lead has won the series 77 of 92 times (84%). The most recent comeback from a 2-0 deficit came in the 2023 NLCS, when the D-backs rallied against the Phillies. In the current 2-3-2 format, the team that wins Games 1 and 2 at home wins the series 45 of 56 times (80%).
In this way, the Yankees, who brought a band of superstars with long-hitting power to the West Coast, headed east with a daunting disadvantage against the Dodgers team, who had been out in the opening game despite feeling anxious. He’s headed there, but now he has two wins before the ring.
Although the Yanks put up a strong attack late in the game, Carlos Rodon’s early efforts put them on the back foot for most of the night.
“No one said it would be easy,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “This is a long series and we need to make it a long series now. We’re not going to flinch. We’ve got to keep doing it.”
The Dodgers faced Rodon from the beginning.
Tommy Edman, the burly utility man who arrived in an unheralded mid-season trade, continued to be a hero, catching Rodon deep with a solo shot in the second and going wild against the southpaw.
The Yankees countered in the top of the third inning with a solo shot by Juan Soto (Yamamoto’s only mistake), but the game was not decided for long. In the bottom of the third inning, the Dodgers’ batting lineup, which was packed, used Rodon’s fastball to mount a two-out rally.
First, Mookie Betts hit a single to left. And Hernandez, who came to L.A. and appeared in the All-Star Game as one of the Dodgers’ lesser-known $1.2 billion winter signings, hit a 98 mph four-seamer from inside the zone into the right-field pavilion seats. An impressive two-run run made it 3-1.
Dodger Stadium was still reeling after Teoscar’s rant when Freeman took to the plate. Although the jersey he wore at Kirk Gibson’s karaoke night was newly housed near the entrance to the stadium’s suite level, Freeman said Game 1’s epic ending was not the end of his contribution to the cause. It was made clear that there was no. He went full count and connected when Rodon tried again with a high heater.
As was the case the night before, Freeman left no doubt as to where the ball would land, and the Dodgers took a 4-1 lead.
“My guess was correct twice,” Freeman said.
That’s a lead that Yamamoto put in clearly capable hands, as he beat off the interested Yankees and signed a 12-year, $325 million contract to join the Dodgers last winter. When tied, he was one spot ahead of ace Gerrit Cole. On this night, Yamamoto disrupted a dangerous batting lineup by allowing only one hit and two walks by Soto, and did not apply pressure often. It was a night that showed. -Pitched in the seventh inning out of the Los Angeles bullpen.
Yamamoto retired the last 11 batters he faced and left the game to a heartwarming round of applause.
“Everything went well today,” he said through an interpreter.
All that jubilation made the sound of silence even more deafening as Ohtani lay in agony at second base. Ohtani drew a walk from Clay Holmes and tried to swipe the bag, just like he did 59 times in the regular season. This time, his left hand slid and hit the ground hard, and the force was transmitted to his shoulder.
“It’s tough. You never like to see the best player in the game get injured like that,” Yankees forward Aaron Judge said of the injury to a likely 2024 MVP candidate. Ta.
After Ohtani’s injury changed the atmosphere, the Yankees tried to change the lead in the ninth inning with a counterattack from Blake Treinen.
Soto singled on a wild pitch and advanced, and Giancarlo Stanton hit a base hit that hit third base, driving Soto to home plate. Jazz Chisholm Jr. hit a single with one out, first and second base, and Treinen walked Anthony Rizzo, 2-2, to load the bases. But Treinen got a big strikeout from Anthony Volpe, and Alex Beshear retired Jose Trevino with one pitch for the final out, and the chaos returned.
“It’s October, nothing is easy,” Freeman said. “The last three outs are the hardest. But all the trust has to do with Blake and Blake gave that trust to Alex. He came out of it. We’re two games up now. . Good start.”
