Dodgers 11, Yankees 3: Teoscar Hernandez comes up big again, smashing 2 homers, including a grand slam

Chad Moriyama 06/08/2024 Game Recaps Leave A Comment

Following yesterday’s pitchers’ duel that went to extra innings, today was much more of a back-and-forth scoring affair before settling in a bit. However, it was the Dodgers that blew things open late behind the hero of last night, Teoscar Hernandez, as he smacked a grand slam to power them to an 11-3 win over the Yankees for a win in both the game and the series.

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Yankees starter Nestor Cortes sat the first three down in order in the 1st, but it was Teoscar again in the 2nd with a big hit, smacking his 14th dinger of the year for an early 1-0 lead.

On the other side, while Gavin Stone had been lights out in recent starts, he also had to navigate around traffic early. His game started with back-to-back singles, but he managed to get the heart of the Yankees order in order to avoid damage. In the 2nd, again back-to-back singles started the inning to corner the runners, and one came home to tie the game on a double-play turn attempt against Austin Wells. 1-1.

The Dodgers fought right back in the 3rd against Cortes, starting at the bottom with an Enrique Hernandez walk and Chris Taylor single. That was capitalized on by a Shohei Ohtani slap single to left to plate a run for a 2-1 lead.

Unfortunately, it didn’t last long, as Stone threw one too many sinkers in a bad location to Aaron Judge, who pummeled a homer to left to tie things up at 2-2.

After Cortes got a 1-2-3 frame in the 4th, Stone responded with one of his own — his first of the game — thanks to some defensive help from Enrique.

Perhaps using the momentum of that play was the Dodgers, who fortunately struck next in the 5th behind Enrique poking a homer to right (4th) to give the Dodgers the lead again at 3-2.

Stone again found traffic in the 5th, though fortunately it was after back-to-back strikeouts to start. An Alex Verdugo double and then carefully walking Judge thankfully resulted in just a deep flyout to center from Giancarlo Stanton.

The Dodgers tacked on to the lead in the 6th, after a one-out Freddie Freeman double and Will Smith single cornered the runners and knocked Cortes out of the game. Michael Tonkin then entered, and while he did get Teoscar to groundout on a nice play by DJ LeMahieu, it wasn’t a double play and Freeman scored to make it 4-2.

Stone seemed to going fine in the 6th as he got two outs to start, but then gave up back-to-back singles to LeMahieu and Wells, and also walked Trent Grisham to load the bases.

That would spell the end of his day, in which he battled and limited the damage: 5.2 IP, 8 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 6 K, 101 Pitches.

Dave Roberts opted to turn to Alex Vesia, and he rewarded him with flyout to left from Anthony Volpe.

After Tonkin continued in the 7th and got a clean frame, it was Vesia continuing as well, getting the heart of the Yankees order. That includes absolutely gassing up Judge for a strikeout.

For the 8th, it was old friend Tommy Kahnle, who started by walking Mookie Betts. Ohtani then hit a soft grounder, but Gleyber Torres bobbled it for an error, and after Freddie struck out, it was Smith loading the bases with a walk.

That brought up the man so far in the series, as Teoscar Hernandez smashed a 2-2 changeup — the fifth in a row he saw — to left-center for a grand slam to make it 8-2 for the Dodgers in a flash!

Another old friend in Dennis Santana finished off the 8th for the Yankees, but obviously the damage was done. He continued in the 9th and ran into trouble with two outs due to a Mookie infield single that he didn’t cover the bag on, an Ohtani four-pitch walk, and then a Freddie double to drive both of them in to push the lead to 10-2.

That left infielder Oswaldo Cabrera to get the final out of the inning, but he promptly walked Teoscar and Andy Pages to force in a run and make it 11-2 before he was able to end the frame.

For the Dodgers — initially protecting a six-run lead and later a nine-run lead — it was Ryan Yarbrough, who navigated around a two-out walk and single in the 8th. However, he gave up a two-out homer in the 9th to Judge for his second of the game to make it the final of 11-3.

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NL WESTRECORD
Dodgers41-25
Padres34-34 (8 GB)

*Either still playing or will play later.

The series concludes tomorrow a bit earlier at 1:00 PM HT/4:00 PM PT/7:00 PM ET, which will of course again be on national broadcast, this time ESPN. It’ll be a surprising matchup of aces as Tyler Glasnow will take the mound against the breakout year of Luis Gil.

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