Ryan Yarbrough dazzles, DJ LeMahieu collects four hits as Yankees avoid sweep vs. Dodgers
The Yankees' Ryan Yarbrough celebrates after striking out the Los Angeles Dodgers' Freddie Freeman to end the sixth inning of a game Sunday in Los Angeles. Credit: AP/Mark J. Terrill
LOS ANGELES — Max Fried had his worst start as a Yankee on Friday night against Major League Baseball’s highest-scoring team.
Will Warren, one of the Yankees’ hottest pitchers before recording all of four outs against the Dodgers on Saturday night, fared far worse.
Ryan Yarbrough?
The challenge proved to be no problem at all for the soft-tossing lefthander.
With a fastball that rarely surpasses 90 mph and a sweeper that generally arrives at the plate at about 70 mph, Yarbrough completely flummoxed the Dodgers over six innings in the Yankees’ 7-3 victory on Sunday night in front of a sellout crowd of 54,031 at Dodger Stadium.
The Yankees avoided a three-game sweep against the team that had taken them out in the 2024 World Series and hammered them in the first two games of this series.
“Nice happy flight home,” said Ben Rice, who hit a 425-foot two-run homer to centerfield on an 0-and-2 pitch from Yoshinobu Yamamoto to highlight a three-run third that made it 4-1. “Feels good to kind of salvage the series there and take that momentum into the next one.”
There were two potentially significant down notes to the evening for the Yankees (36-22), who finished this nine-game trip with a 6-3 record.
Jasson Dominguez left the game with a left thumb contusion suffered when he made a headfirst slide into second on a stolen base in the fifth inning. Closer Luke Weaver had to cut his warmup short before the ninth because, manager Aaron Boone said, he “felt something” in a hamstring.
“We’ll see what we have there tomorrow,” Boone said, not sounding especially optimistic. Weaver still was receiving treatment after the game.
Dominguez, who drove in the Yankees’ first run with a two-out single in the first, will go for testing on the thumb on Monday, though he did not sound concerned.
“I think there’s nothing to worry about,” said Dominguez, who came out of the game because he was having difficulty gripping the bat. “Right now I’m feeling better already, so I don’t think there’s anything concerning.”
Yarbrough, 33, signed by the Yankees with about a week left in spring training, allowed one run and four hits against a Dodgers team that had outscored the visitors 26-7 in the first two games of the series, including 18-2 on Saturday.
Yarbrough is 3-0 with a 2.08 ERA in five starts since joining the rotation on May 3. He has allowed 16 hits and five walks in 26 innings, striking out 24.
“He’s just a tough one to deal with,” said DJ LeMahieu, who had four hits and two RBIs on Sunday. “Just super-glad I don’t have to face him. Playing behind him is much more fun. He’s got that different angle. He’s not going to light up the radar gun, but all his pitches feel like they get on you. His fastballs look like they get on you and his off-speed looks extra slow. He’s got good stuff and he knows what he’s doing out there.”
The Dodgers (36-23) hit two solo homers off Jonathan Loaisiga in the seventh — the first by Andy Pages and the second by Max Muncy, who hit a pair of three-run bombs on Saturday — to make it 6-3.
Devin Williams struck out two in a perfect eighth and LeMahieu’s fourth hit, an RBI double in the ninth, made it 7-3. Tim Hill pitched a 1-2-3 ninth.
Yarbrough, a Dodger for half of last season who received his World Series ring on Friday from Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes, dramatically outpitched Yamamoto, who came into the game 6-3 with a 1.97 ERA. He entered his start leading the National League in opponents’ batting average (.170), WHIP (0.91), opponents’ OBP (.241), opponents’ slugging (.277) and opponents’ OPS (.518).
Yamamoto, who allowed one run and one hit in 6 1⁄3 innings in a World Series Game 2 win last October, allowed four runs and seven hits in a season-low 3 2⁄3 innings Sunday, walking four.
Yarbrough (93 pitches), who allowed a solo home run by Tommy Edman that tied the score at 1-1 in the second, exited with a 6-1 lead.
“I feel like I’m in a really good place right now,” he said. “I’m really trying to continue that and to be able to do whatever I can for the team — [to] be able to eat innings, kind of keep us in ballgames. I’m having a lot of fun. I’m really enjoying starting.”
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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