NEW YORK — The Dodgers had already done the hard part in the Bronx. They just couldn’t finish the job. A Saturday rainout forced a doubleheader to close out this series, and after Los Angeles banked the series-clinching win in the early game, a patchwork bullpen carried a one-run deficit deep into a long, grinding nightcap before Tommy Edman briefly evened things up in the eighth. Jazz Chisholm Jr. had the last word. His go-ahead homer off Evan Phillips two batters later held up, and the Yankees escaped with a 2-1 win to salvage the finale, even as the Dodgers walked out of New York with the series already tucked away.
A stitched-together staff holds the line
With the rotation stretched thin from the doubleheader, the Dodgers turned the ball over seven times before the game was through, and for six and a half innings, the bullpen game nearly worked. Will Klein opened and ran into trouble immediately, with Paul Goldschmidt doubling and Cody Bellinger driving him in before the first inning was over. That was it for a long stretch. Kyle Hurt, Edgardo Henriquez and Jack Dreyer strung together zeros in relief, and the defense bailed the staff out when it needed to most. In the fourth, José Caballero’s fielder’s choice cut down Anthony Volpe at the plate to keep the deficit at one, and Brock Stewart followed with two clean innings of his own, striking out the side in the fifth.
It wasn’t always tidy. New York put runners on in six of the first seven innings. But the Dodgers kept finding an out when they needed one, and the 1-0 score held into the eighth despite everything the Yankees threw at it.
Edman’s pinch-hit swing ties it back up
Down to their bench in the eighth, the Dodgers got exactly what they needed from it. Tommy Edman came on to pinch-hit for Miguel Rojas and didn’t wait around, turning on a pitch and sending it out to right-center for his second homer of the season. Just like that, a game the Dodgers had been chasing all afternoon was tied at 1-1, and the dugout had life again. Max Muncy drew a walk two batters later, and Dalton Rushing worked one of his own to put two runners on, but Shohei Ohtani and Andy Pages couldn’t cash it in, and the inning ended with the game still even.
Chisholm answers, and the ninth comes up empty
The tie lasted all of one batter. Evan Phillips took over for Alex Vesia to start the bottom of the eighth, struck out Jasson Domínguez, and then hung one to Jazz Chisholm Jr., who put it into the left-center bleachers for his 14th of the year and the go-ahead run. It was the kind of swing that decides a series finale, quick and clean, and the Yankees never let go of the lead from there.
Up next
The finale loss stings, but it’s the kind that’s easier to shake off with a series win already banked. The Dodgers came into the Bronx looking for any kind of response after their pre-break stumble, and they leave having taken two of three from a good Yankees club, even if a marathon doubleheader had the last laugh.
There’s no time to sit with it either way. Los Angeles heads straight to Philadelphia for a three-game set against the Phillies starting Monday at 4:10 p.m. PST, with Emmet Sheehan on the mound against Cristopher Sánchez as the Dodgers look to carry the good version of this weekend into the next stop.
