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Alden Gonzalez
LOS ANGELES — The New York Yankees‘ return to Dodger Stadium, the site of a star-studded World Series and an improbable Game 1, was billed as one of this season’s most anticipated matchups. It began in unprecedented fashion — with Aaron Judge homering in the top of the first and Shohei Ohtani answering in the bottom half, marking the first time two reigning MVPs have homered in the same inning of the same game.
In the end, Ohtani prevailed.
The Los Angeles Dodgers‘ two-way phenomenon added another homer in the sixth, igniting a four-run rally against a previously dominant Max Fried and sparking an 8-5, come-from-behind victory on Friday night. Ohtani has now gone deep 15 times in May, tying a franchise record for the most home runs in a single month.
“He’s impressive,” Judge said. “He’s one of the best players in the game for a reason. What he can do in the box, on the basepath, once he gets back on the mound — it’s special.”
Ohtani is expected to face hitters in a live-batting-practice session at Dodger Stadium on Saturday, his second in a span of six days. His pitching progression has been steady in recent weeks, but he is not expected to join the Dodgers’ needy rotation until some time after the All-Star break. In the meantime, Ohtani continues to be a force offensively, slashing .294/.394/.670 with 11 stolen bases and a major league-leading 22 home runs — three more than the second-place Judge, whose batting average sits at .392.
“I heard the chants for MVP tonight,” Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman said of Ohtani, “and he’s really well on his way to doing that again.”
The Dodgers defeated the Yankees in five World Series games last fall, claiming their first full-season championship in 36 years. It was a matchup of arguably the two most storied franchises, both with bloated payrolls and star-laden rosters. Seven months later, the rematch was just as decorated. Had Mookie Betts not sustained the toe fracture that is expected to keep him out for the entire weekend series, Friday’s game would have marked the first time in major league history that three former MVPs resided in each lineup for the same game.
Judge and Ohtani, though, are the clear headliners — and both played as advertised. Ohtani homered twice; Judge homered, added a double and made a sensational diving catch deep in the right-center-field gap, robbing Teoscar Hernandez of extra bases.
Said Yankees manager Aaron Boone: “Some of the stars really shone tonight.”
Fried was certainly one of them. The star left-hander fashioned a 7-0 record and a 1.29 ERA through his first 11 starts with the Yankees and held a 5-2 lead when he took the mound for the sixth inning.
Then the Dodgers came all the way back, drawing memories of their infamous five-run rally in Game 5 of the World Series. Ohtani started it with a towering home run to right field. Hernandez and Will Smith added back-to-back singles. Freeman, who ranks just behind Judge with a .368 batting average, added an opposite-field RBI double. Andy Pages drove in another run with a single, and Michael Comfort plated the Dodgers’ sixth with a bases-loaded walk.
The Dodgers added two more with Pages’ two-run single in the seventh, and a severely shorthanded bullpen — one that lost Evan Phillips to Tommy John surgery and has four other high-leverage relievers on the injured list — held the Yankees in check the rest of the way.
Asked if it reminded him of the Dodgers’ World Series comeback of Game 5, Freeman, who delivered the walk-off grand slam in Game 1, said he “actually never thought about it.”
“That was just pretty good ball game right there to beat Max Fried, who is probably one of the top five pitchers in the game right now. To score that many runs off him, it’s very hard to do. And a testament to Shohei, who is hitting home runs all over the place, and then just getting guys on, keeping the line moving, getting huge hits, and just tacking on a couple more runs. That was awesome.”
