Ohtani's injury bittersweet Game 2 win, 2-0 WS lead

LOS ANGELES – It was a loud night. A pregame performance by LA legend Ice Cube. Ball bounding off Dodgers bat. A standing ovation for Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Huge center-field speakers blast party music in a celebratory atmosphere.

All that Game 2 noise went away when Shohei Ohtani hit his left shoulder on a seventh-inning stolen-base attempt and lay on the ground in obvious pain. The Dodger Stadium crowd quickly quieted down, then erupted into wild excitement when the Yankees nearly came back in the bottom of the ninth. But even with an injury to their iconic designated hitter hanging in the air, the Dodgers were able to feed off Freddie Freeman's frenzy overnight with a 4-2 victory Saturday night to take a 2-0 lead in the series. Off-Seven Fall Classic.

Freeman, still with a sprained right ankle, went deep again, and this time he got support from NLCS MVP Tommy Edman and All-Stars Teoscar Hernandez and Yamamoto for 6 1/3 one-hit innings. The party went quiet when Ohtani went down, and the Yankees were all on the edge of their seats when they plated a run and loaded the bases in the ninth. But the Dodgers defended their home turf.

“You're not trying to lose in front of your home crowd,” said Freeman, who is in pole position for MVP honors. “You want to get those wins early, and you're going to be in a tough place to play.”

It could be even more difficult if Ohtani is out. But after their win, the Dodgers were hopeful that the shoulder subluxation Ohtani was suffering from could be managed.

“Tonight, tomorrow we're going to do some tests and then we'll know more in the next couple of days,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “But the energy was great. Speed ​​range, good. So we are encouraged.”

In all of the best-of-seven postseason series, teams leading 2-0 won the series 77 out of 92 times (84%). The most recent comeback from a 2-0 deficit came in the 2023 NLCS, where the D-backs rallied against the Phillies. Under the current 2-3-2 format, teams that win Games 1 and 2 at home have won the series 45 out of 56 times (80%).

And so the Yankees, who had brought their band of slugging superstars to the West Coast, marched east with a daunting deficit against a Dodgers team that was far from an upset in the opener, yet now two wins from a ring.

Although the Yanks pressed late, Carlos Rodon's struggles from the start forced them to play behind him most of the night.

“Nobody said it was going to be easy,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “It's a long series, and we have to make it a long series now. We will not move. We just have to hold on to it.”

The Dodgers were up early against Rodon.

Tommy Edman, a wiry utility man who came aboard in an undrafted midseason trade, continued his hero turn and sizzle against the southpaw by taking Roddon deep with a single shot in the second.

Although the Yankees struck back with a Juan Soto single — Yamamoto's only error — in the top of the third, the game wasn't knotted for long. In the bottom of the third, a loaded Dodgers lineup feasted on a Rodon fastball to mount a two-out rally.

In the first, Mookie Betts ripped a single to left. Then, Hernandez, who arrived in L.A. as one of the Dodgers' $1.2 billion winter signings and turned in an All-Star campaign, smoked a 98 mph four-seamer into the right-field pavilion seats in the zone for a magnificent two-run blast that 3-1 by.

Dodger Stadium was still rocking after Teosker's teeter when Freeman stepped to the plate. The jersey he wore for Kirk Gibson karaoke night was freshly draped near the stadium's suite-level entrance, but Freeman made it clear that the epic ending to Game 1 wasn't the end of his contribution to the cause. He worked the full count, then connected when Rodon challenged him with another high hitter.

As was the case the night before, Freeman had no doubt where the ball would land and the Dodgers were up 4-1.

“I guessed right twice,” Freeman said.

That was the lead in the clearly capable hands of Yamamoto, who turned down interested Yankees and one-upped their stalwart Gerrit Cole when he signed a 12-year, $325 million deal to join the Dodgers last winter. It was a night when Yamamoto showed the wider baseball world — including a large audience in his native Japan — what all the fuss was about, confounding a dangerous lineup by allowing only a Soto swat and two walks and often keeping the pressure off. Used the LA bullpen by pitching in the seventh.

Yamamoto retired the last 11 hitters he faced and walked to a rousing round of applause.

“Everything,” he said through an interpreter, “was working well today.”

All that joy created the sound of silence as Ohtani lay in agony at second base with even more holes. Ohtani attempted to walk off Clay Holmes and swipe a bag, just as he did 59 times during the regular season. This time, his left hand hit the ground hard on his slide, and the ball went over his shoulder.

“It's tough,” the Yankees' Aaron Judge said of the injury to his potential fellow 2024 MVP. “You never like the best player in the game to get injured like that.”

An Ohtani injury changed the tone, and then the Yankees mounted a ninth-inning rally off Blake Treinen to try to change the lead.

Soto singled and advanced on a wild pitch, and Giancarlo Stanton drove him home with a base hit off the third-base bag. Jazz Chisholm Jr. plunked down Anthony Rizzo with a 2-2 pitch to put runners on first and second with one out and Treinen loaded the bases. But Treinen got a huge strikeout of Anthony Volpe, and Alex Vecia retired Jose Trevino on one pitch for the final out to bring the Louds back.

“It's October, nothing will be easy,” Freeman said. “The last three outs are the toughest. But all the trust lies with Blake and Blake puts it in Alex's hands. He got out there. So we're up to two games. It's a good start.”