Shohei Ohtani hit two home runs, including one in a four-run sixth inning, as the Los Angeles Dodgers rallied for an 8-5 victory over the visiting New York Yankees on Friday in a World Series rematch that resembled an October contest.
Freddie Freeman added an RBI double in the sixth, Andy Pages hit a game-tying single and Michael Conforto walked with the bases loaded for the go-ahead score. Pages finished with two hits and three RBIs.
Freeman had three hits, while Ohtani now has five home runs in his past five games, with three of those coming as he led off the first inning. Two of them, including a blast Friday, came on the opposition’s first pitch of the game.
Aaron Judge hit a first-inning home run for the Yankees, whose five-game winning streak ended. Austin Wells, Trent Grisham and Paul Goldschmidt also hit home runs for New York.
Yankees starter Max Fried (7-1) permitted a season-high six earned runs on eight hits in five-plus innings while losing for the first time in 12 starts this year. He fanned three without issuing a walk.
Dodgers starter Tony Gonsolin (3-1) prevailed despite allowing five runs on six hits in six innings. He struck out four and walked three. Alex Vesia earned his second save with a scoreless ninth inning.
Ohtani hit his 21st and 22nd home run to increase his major-league-leading total, while Judge now has 19. The first-inning blasts were the first time in major league history a pair of reigning MVPs hit homers in the opening inning of the same game.
The Yankees broke the 1-1 tie in a three-run second inning when Wells hit his ninth homer of the season and Grisham added his 13th, a two-run shot. The Dodgers pulled within 4-2 in the bottom of the second on an RBI groundout from Enrique Hernandez.
New York made it 5-2 in the third inning on Goldschmidt’s sixth homer of the season.
Ohtani’s second home run of the game came in the sixth, a towering shot that just cleared the right-field wall. Freeman, Pages and Conforto all added RBIs in an inning that looked similar to Los Angeles’ five-run rally in the fifth inning of the clinching Game 5 of the World Series.
The Dodgers made it 8-5 in the seventh on a two-run single from Pages.
Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts was a late scratch due to a toe injury.
–Field Level Media
