Dodgers hit 3 home runs for 2-0 World Series lead, but Shohei Ohtani leaves with injury

LOS ANGELES — Game 1 ended with a roar. Game 2 ended with concerned murmurs.

The Dodgers got a stellar performance from pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto and hit three home runs in the first three innings, including back-to-back homers by Teoscar Hernandez and Freddie Freeman, and used that power burst to take control of this World Series with a 4-2 victory over the New York Yankees in Game 2 on Saturday night.

But Shohei Ohtani left the game with an apparent injury after being thrown out while trying to steal second base in the seventh inning. Ohtani appeared to jam his left shoulder as he went into his slide and braced himself with his left arm.

The likely National League MVP left the field holding his left arm gingerly with a trainer at his side and could be seen telling the trainer, in Japanese, that he had popped his shoulder out of its socket.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Ohtani suffered a subluxation – a partial dislocation – of the shoulder. He will have an MRI on Sunday, but Roberts said Ohtani’s range of motion was good after leaving the game.

If that wasn’t enough to make Dodger fans nervous, Blake Treinen raised their collective blood pressure even higher in the ninth inning. The Dodgers took a one-hitter into the ninth but Treinen retired just one of the five batters he faced. A run scored as he gave up three hits and hit Anthony Rizzo with a pitch to load the bases. But Treinen struck out Anthony Volpe and Alex Vesia came in to get a game-ending fly out.

But it’s Ohtani’s status that will loom over the travel day on Sunday. The World Series resumes at Yankee Stadium on Monday night at 5:08 p.m. PT. Walker Buehler is scheduled to start for the Dodgers and Clarke Schmidt for the Yankees.

Teams with a 2-0 advantage in the World Series have gone on to win 44 of 54 previous times.

Buehler and Schmidt will be challenged to match the performance of Yamamoto in Game 2.

Yamamoto allowed just one hit in six innings – a solo home run by Juan Soto in the third inning. He retired 11 batters in order after that mistake, completing six innings and pitching into the seventh for the first time since his seven scoreless innings at Yankee Stadium on June 7.

Soto’s homer was the only time the Yankees returned fire against Yamamoto.

Presumptive American League MVP Aaron Judge was hitless in four at-bats in Game 2, striking out three times (twice against Yamamoto and again against Blake Treinen in the ninth) and has struck out six times in his first nine at-bats in this series after going 5 for 31 (.161) with 13 strikeouts in the Yankees’ previous two series.

After asking as little as possible from their starting pitchers in the NL Division Series and Championship Series, Jack Flaherty and Yamamoto have combined to allow just three runs on six hits over 11⅔ innings in the first two games of the World Series.

With the roar that followed Freddie Freeman’s walk-off grand slam in Game 1 still echoing off the hills surrounding Dodger Stadium, the Dodgers got to Yankees Game 2 starter Carlos Rodón quickly.

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Tommy Edman led off the second inning with a solo home run down the left field line. Edman added a double in his next at-bat. The switch-hitter has terrorized left-handed pitchers like Rodon since joining the Dodgers (25 for 50 with six home runs, six doubles and a triple) – more so in the postseason. He is 11 for 16 (.688) with four doubles and two home runs off left-handed pitching in the postseason.

An inning later, Mookie Betts singled to left field with two outs. Teoscar Hernandez got a high fastball from Rodon on 1-and-0 and sent it over the wall in right-center field for a two-run homer.

Freeman had to work hard for his fat fastball. It finally came with the count full and he lined it 401 feet into the right field pavilion.

Hernandez and Freeman were the 19th pair of batters to hit back-to-back home runs in a World Series.

If Freeman’s grand slam in Game 1 evoked memories of Kirk Gibson in the 1988 World Series, Hernandez and Freeman did a callback to the Dodgers’ 1981 World Series victory over the Yankees. That was the only other time a pair of Dodgers hit back-to-back home runs in a World Series game. Pedro Guerrero and Steve Yeager did it in Game 5 and the Dodgers went on to win the series in Game 6.

More to come on this story.

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