Dodgers can’t sweep Yankees as Tyler Glasnow gives up costly home run
NEW YORK — Now that’s a Bronx cheer.
With their Yankees trailing by a run and on the verge of being swept by a National League team in Yankee Stadium for the first time in the history of interleague play, Yankees fans roused themselves in full throats as .082-hitting Trent Grisham came to the plate with runners at the corners and one out.
“We! Want! Soto!” they chanted, the call picking up steam around the stadium.
Juan Soto has not played during this series due to a forearm injury though Yankees manager Aaron Boone has tried to use him as a decoy. During Friday’s scoreless duel, Soto was on the top step of the dugout at one point, batting gloves on. After the game, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was dismissive, saying he never believed Soto was a threat to bat.
He wasn’t Sunday night either.
Instead, Grisham slammed a 2-and-1 fastball that Tyler Glasnow left over the heart of the plate, sending it 394 feet into the right field seats for a three-run home that changed the fans’ preferences and lifted the Yankees to a 6-4 victory over the Dodgers in the series finale.
Glasnow acknowledged he heard the chants — “Oh yeah, I did.” Roberts said it didn’t register with him.
“I didn’t know what they were saying. It was loud. It was a little muffled for me,” Roberts said. “I guess in that one moment in time I would rather have had Soto at bat.”
Grisham smiled after the game and said he had heard the “Soto” chants but was just “happy” to come through, not necessarily to show the fans anything. But Aaron Judge was disgruntled on his behalf.
“Soto is going to heal up fine, but Grish is a heck of a ballplayer and he showed it tonight in a big moment when we needed him,” Boone said. “I wasn’t too happy with it. But I think he made a good point. He got his point across with that homer.”
The Dodgers got their own point across, taking two of the three games in the marquee matchup played in front of sold-out crowds and national television each night. The games were played in tight quarters – 19 of the 29 innings ended with the score tied or one team leading by just a run.
“Yeah, sure,” Mookie Betts said when asked if the series was a good test run for what October will bring. “But there’s six months of that. You just can’t use the Yankees for that. You’ve got to use every team. Every team that you play against has got to be the same intensity. Got to be the same intent on getting the job done. Maybe for others, but for me it’s the same. I try and use every situation I get in the same.”
Betts did come through with a two-run double in the fifth inning to tie the game — the first runs the Dodgers scored for Glasnow in 34 innings and five starts dating back to May 4.
Teoscar Hernandez continued his big weekend in the Big Apple, giving the Dodgers the lead with a solo home run in the sixth. He went 6 for 12 with two doubles, three home runs and nine RBIs.
But Glasnow ran into trouble in the bottom of the sixth.
Back-to-back singles and a wild pitch put runners at the corners for Giancarlo Stanton. Glasnow struck him out, slipping a slider by him on the seventh pitch.
That brought up Grisham, playing in Soto’s spot – to the fans’ disapproval. That changed four pitches later. In his next at-bat, fans briefly chanted, “We want Grisham.”
“I thought the stuff was okay,” Glasnow said of his outing. “I just think in bad counts, bad pitches right over the zone. Just in guys’ zones that you’re not supposed to go.”
The Dodgers wasted one scoring opportunity in the seventh on a bad slide by Andy Pages. Kike’ Hernandez dropped a bunt in front of the plate that catcher Jose Trevino fielded and threw to third, trying to cut down the lead runner. Pages was out on a close play because his lead leg was in the air on his slide and didn’t reach the base in time. Betts bounced into a double play.
“That’s just one of those things – it’s a fundamental play and he just didn’t get his foot down,” Roberts said of Pages’ slide.
The Dodgers briefly made it a one-run game again in the eighth when Shohei Ohtani got just his second hit of the series, a soft double down the left field line. Will Smith drove him in with a sacrifice fly.
Judge got that run back in the bottom of the eighth with his third home run in two nights and MLB-leading 25th of the season. Even uncoupled from Soto, Judge went 7 for 11 in the series with two doubles, three home runs and five RBIs.
The Dodgers had one more shot in the ninth, putting the tying runs on base again for Betts. He struck out against Yankees closer Clay Holmes.
“We did alright,” Betts said, assessing the series. “There’s obviously a lot of things that we have to fix. I mean, situational hitting. I think that’s one of the main things. Just making sure (we’re) playing the game the right way, doing everything the right way because come postseason time we’re going to have to execute those things.
“I came up in a couple situations that I need to come through. I don’t know how to work on that, but sometimes you’ve just got to get stuff done.”