About Last Night: A Rude Awakening. Dodgers 2, Yankees 1

About Last Night: A Rude Awakening. Dodgers 2- Yankees 1

By Tim Kabel

July 18, 2026

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The Yankees opened the nominal second half of the season last night. It was actually their 97th game of the year. In reality, it was a whole new world from where the Yankees ended the first half of the season last Sunday, to borrow a line from Aladdin. To put it another way, as Dorothy would say in The Wizard of Oz, “We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.”

The Yankees were able to beat the Nationals three games in a row last weekend because the Nationals do not actually have a bullpen. When their general manager was constructing the team, he apparently left that off his shopping list. The Nationals are an excellent hitting team and their starting pitchers were not bad against the Yankees. The Yankees came back came from behind to win all three of those games. One could have easily looked at the sweep of the Nationals and concluded that the Yankees offense was very effective, and they were very good at timely hitting and rallying from behind. It is much more likely that it was a result of the Nationals bullpen collapsing in each of those three games.

What the Yankees could get away with against the Nationals, they could not against the Dodgers. That's baseball, Suzyn.

In last night's game, there were a few moments that stood out. Obviously, Max Muncy's 7th inning home run off Gerrit Cole won the game. However, the circumstances surrounding that home run make it interesting. Gerrit Cole, who is as we know, recovering from Tommy John surgery and missed all last season, was dominant until he wasn't. He pitched six shutout innings and the Yankees clung to a 1-0 lead. Cole started the 7th inning by walking Mookie Betts. Aaron Boone went to the mound, presumably to remove Cole from the game. Cole convinced Boone to let him stay in the game. I respect Cole for wanting to remain in the game. He is a true competitor. I'm not even going to second guess Aaron Boone for letting him stay in. However, anytime that Aaron Boone has allowed a pitcher to stay in the game when he went out to remove him, things have not gone well. That's what we like to call in the business a lesson. Boone has not learned that lesson and seems to think that each time he lets a pitcher convince him that he should stay in the game, the result will be different. It's basically the same thing as Yankees fans believing each season that there won't be a Boone-Swoon and that Aaron Boone will lead the team to a World Series victory. If we can't learn our lesson, why are we surprised that Boone hasn't learned his? AS we know, Cole stayed in and Muncy homered to give the Dodgers the lead.

Another problem is the Yankees didn't do very much offensively.

Pay close attention while I detail what the Yankees offense did last night. In the fourth inning, Jasson Dominguez doubled and took third base when the Dodgers centerfielder Andy Pages dropped the ball. Dominguez then scored on a passed ball. Essentially, Dominguez created that run with his power and speed. In the eighth inning, Trent Grisham walked with one out. Ben Rice then hit a double to the base of the wall in right centerfield. Grisham, who appeared to be watching the ball, slowed down somewhat, and was thrown out at home on a perfect relay throw by Mookie Betts. That was it for the offensive excitement from the Yankees last night. They had a total of six hits. Ben Rice had two of them and Dominguez, Cody Bellinger, Jazz Chisholm, and Ryan McMahon had one each.

Now that the Yankees will be playing tougher competition and teams that actually have bullpens, they will need to score more runs. After the game, Trent Grisham offered these pearls of wisdom, “Sometimes you score ten runs. Sometimes you score one.” Apparently, he has been taking notes during Aaron Boone’s press conferences.

Before the game, it was announced that the recent imaging of Aaron Judge showed some healing but not enough for him to begin any baseball activities. He will be able to do the same type of baseball activities that I can do right now: watching. There is no timetable set for his return or even for his ability to engage in said baseball activities. We are more than halfway through July, so it is looking unlikely that Judge will return with much time left in the season. Whatever the Yankees are going to do this year has to be done with the assumption the Judge will not be contributing. That is going to make it more difficult. It was clear the Dodgers were going to present a real test for the Yankees. In the first part of that test, the Yankees did not do so well.

A Few Tidbits: 

·       Last night's game was the first time the Dodgers played in Yankee Stadium since winning the 2024 World Series.

·       The last time that Gerrit Cole pitched against the Dodgers was in the last game of the 2024 World Series. In that game, he also surrendered a lead, but the lead was larger and there were some crucial errors, resulting in five unearned runs.

·       The Yankees are 18-20 in their last 38 games, all of which have been played without Aaron Judge. When they finish Sunday's game, they will have essentially played a quarter of the season without Aaron Judge, and they will have also played a quarter of the season at or below .500. 

·       The play at the plate in the 8th inning when Grisham was thrown out, was Andy Pages’ Major League leading 13th outfield assist.

·       Roki Sasaki reached 100 miles MPH on 21 pitches last night. He had thrown a total of 12 this season before that. Apparently, he was as hot as those Canadian wildfires.

·       Ben Rice has a 9-game hitting streak and has reached base 13 games in a row.

·       George Lombard, junior returned to the Scranton Wilkes-Barre lineup last night after almost a month on the IL. He hit a home run in his first at bat, leading off for the Rail Riders. It was Lombard’s 16th multi-hit game of the year. He is batting .311 against left-handed pitching this season. Despite a slow start in AAA, Lombard is now batting .263 in the minor leagues this season with fifty runs scored and nine home runs. In the Yankees farm system, he ranks first in on base percentage at .392 and is tied for first in doubles with 20. He is also fourth in walks, after missing almost a month. Anthony Volpe should be shopping for luggage.

·       Watch out for the Red Sox. Yesterday, they swept a doubleheader from the Tampa Bay Rays to extend their winning streak to 11 games. They have now reached .500 for the first time since the second game of the season. A few weeks ago, they were being written off. They are now essentially tied for the final Wild Card position in the American League. I doubt they will be selling many of their players at the deadline if this keeps up.

·       On July 17th, 1941, Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak came to an end against the Cleveland Indians. My friend Roger was at the game and was deeply disappointed. He even shed a tear. The fact that he was 32 years old at the time drew some attention but that's beside the point. Speaking of my friend Roger, yesterday was his birthday. Two weeks after America turned 250 years old, so did Roger.

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Tonight, the Yankees will play the second game of the three-game series against the Los Angeles Dodgers at 8:08 PM at Yankee Stadium. Emmet Sheehan, (4-6, 4.81 ERA) will face Ryan Weathers, (3-7, 4.15 ERA).