Old Nemesis Teoscar Hernandez Beats Yanks. LA 2 NY 1 in 11

June 8, 2024 paperbacklou 2024 0

Old nemesis Teoscar Hernandez doubled in 2 runs in the top of the 11th inning off Ian Hamilton, giving the Dodgers a 2-0 lead in beating the Yanks 2-1, on a Beautiful June evening in the Bronx.

Aaron Judge singled in the inherited runner in the bottom of the 11th but the Yankee rally fell short.

The eyes of baseball were on the game — with tremendous media coverage and a full house of over 48,000 at the park including over 2,000 Dodger fans who reserved seats in the grandstands. The game lived up to the billing as everyone was on the edge of their seat throughout, with the pressure ratcheting up as the game remained 0-0 into the late innings.

The game was a pitchers duel between Yoshinobu Yamamoto — who pitched 7 innings of 2-hit shutout ball — and Cody Poteet and the Yankee pen. Poteet pitched 4.1 shutout innings, and then Victor Gonzalez, Michael Tonkin, Caleb Ferguson, Clay Holmes, and Hamilton (who pitched a shutout 10th) all did their job in keeping the Dodgers scoreless until the 11th inning.

Juan Soto got the night off due to his left forearm soreness — imaging before the game revealed it was nothing major.

“It was a great ballgame,” said manager Aaron Boone afterwards. “You love when you’re scoring and doing that of course. But it’s one of those — man there’s just a lot of good pitching, good plays, tough at bats, both sides had a couple of opportunities to break through but couldn’t; but just a very well pitched game both sides.”

The Yanks have their 8-game winning streak snapped, and fall to 45-20, now 3.5 in front of Baltimore. The Dodgers improve to 40-25. in 1st by 8 games.

1. Poteet Did Good

Cody Poteet did good again. That’s 3 good starts for the 29-year-old right hander the Yanks picked up as an insurance policy to their starting staff this winter on a 1-year contract. Poteet missed most of 2022 recovering from Tommy John surgery, after coming up with the Miami organization.

Poteet is in the starting rotation to fill in for Clarke Schmidt, on the 15-day IL with a lat pull.

  • Poteet needed 23 pitches to navigate the tough Dodger lineup in the 1st inning, but then got thru the 2nd inning on 4 pitches, allowing a basehit to Teoscar Hernandez but getting Jayson Heyward to hit into a double play.

  • Poteet threw another 23-pitch inning in the 4th, including hitting Teoscar Hernandez with a pitch then a 9-pitch at bat to Heyward before getting him to ground out to end the inning.
  • He tired in the 5th, allowing a 2-out walk, then a single to Mookie Betts — and was lifted for lefty Victor Gonzalez, who got lefty Shohei Ohtani to end the inning.

Afterwards, manager Aaron Boone defended Gleyber’s defense: “Reality is the last month he’s played really good defense. Nobody talks about a lot of the plays he makes. The last month of defense for him has been really solid; including a couple of really good plays tonite, a really good double play turned. He dropped a popup. That’s how he catches popups. Not necessarily how I’d do it — but he’s really good at catching popups, actually.”

2. Yamamoto Throws 2-Hit Shutout thru 7

The Yanks looked like they might get to Yamamoto in the 1st two innings — a 2-out double by Aaron Judge in the 1st inning (but Giancarlo Stanton struck out to end the inning), and then runners on 1st and 3rd with 2 outs in the 2nd after Gleyber Torres got on with an error and Trent Grisham singled him to 3rd — but Jose Trevino struck out to end the inning.

After that Yamamoto was lights out — pitching a 1-2-3 inning in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th, before allowing a 2-out walk to Aaron Judge in the 6th. Yamamoto got lots of groundouts with his 93-MPH splitter, 87-MPH slider, or 97-MPH sinker, and 7 strikeouts with his sinker or 97-MPH four-seam fastball.

Yamamoto was at 96 pitches but came out for the 7th — and walked Gleyber Torres with 1 out. But he got another grounder — DJ LeMahieu hitting into a double play to end the inning.

Yamamoto’s line: 7 IP, 2 hits, 0 runs, 7 K’s, 2 walks, 106 pitches.

3. Giancarlo Looked Like He Won It in 8th

The Yankees waged a 2-out rally in the bottom of the 8th, as singles by Anthony Volpe and Alex Verdugo chased reliever Anthony Banda, and Aaron Judge worked a walk in a 10-pitch at bat against reliever Blake Treinen — Judge fouling off 4 straight 3-2 pitches.

Giancarlo Stanton then looked like he hit a grand slam off the bat — it looked like it and sounded like it — but he just missed it — the ball an easy fly to left. Most of Yankee Universe thought he got it. Damn.

4. Yankee Bullpen Brilliant

The entire Yankee bullpen got kudos — Victor Gonzalez, Michael Tonkin who got the last 2 outs of the 6th then pitched a shutout 7th, Caleb Ferguson who pitched a shutout 8th, Clay Holmes who pitched a shutout 9th, and even losing pitcher Ian Hamilton who worked through the inherited runner to pitch a shutout 10th — including a head’s up play by Anthony Volpe who got the inherited runner at 3rd on a grounder.

5. Old Nemesis Teoscar Gets Yanks Again

And Hamilton looked like he might work out of another inherited-runner-on-2nd situation in the 11th when, after carefully pitching to Freddie Freeman and walking him, he got Wil Smith to hit a shallow fly to center for the 1st out.

But old Yankee nemesis Teoscar Hernandez — great hitter who killed the Yanks for years on the Toronto Blue Jays — ripped a 1-2 pitch for a double to left and a 2-0 Dodger lead.

Hernandez is now 31 years old; he signed to a 1-year, $23.5 M deal with the Dodgers this winter.

6. Judge RBI Single But Yank Rally Ends There

The Dodgers sent Yohan Ramirez out to pitch the bottom of the 11th. He struck out Verdugo but Aaron Judge ripped an RBI single for a 2-1 game.

With the tying run on 1st and the winning run at the plate, Giancarlo Stanton struck out and Anthony Rizzo popped out to foul ground for the old ballgame.

The Boxscore

https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore/_/gameId/401569423

 

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*