The Yankees and their fan base exhaled Friday afternoon, then spent the night elevating heart rates around the tri-state area for different reasons.
The encouraging news of Juan Soto’s only having forearm inflammation soon gave way to a highly anticipated showdown that had a playoff feel between the Yankees and Dodgers.
The series opener lived up to the hype surrounding it, with a nail-biting scoreless game going to extras before the Dodgers crashed the party in their first visit to Yankee Stadium since 2016.
Teoscar Hernandez finally broke the ice by drilling a two-run double to the gap off Ian Hamilton in the 11th inning, snapping the Yankees’ eight-game winning streak and lifting the Dodgers to a 2-1 win in front of a buzzing sellout crowd of 48,048.
The Yankees (45-20) got one run back in the bottom of the inning when Aaron Judge roped a one-out single to score automatic runner Anthony Volpe from second.
But Dodgers reliever Yohan Ramirez got Giancarlo Stanton to strike out and Anthony Rizzo to pop out to end it.
Hamilton had kept the Dodgers (40-25) at bay with a scoreless top of the 10th inning, giving the Yankees a chance to win it in the bottom half.
But Trent Grisham could not get a bunt down to lead off the inning, instead flying out before Dodgers reliever Michael Grove got Jose Trevino and Volpe to pop out, sending the game to the 11th.
The Yankees were playing without Soto in their starting lineup for the first time this season after a Friday afternoon MRI exam revealed forearm inflammation, which manager Aaron Boone described as “good news.”
Boone did not shut the door on Soto’s being available off the bench Friday night, and the slugger did have his batting gloves on with a bat in his hands while standing on the top step of the dugout in the bottom of the seventh and again in the bottom of the ninth.
But he never got farther than that, seemingly just serving as a decoy the whole time.
After Yoshinobu Yamamoto stifled the Yankees across seven shutout innings, they had the makings of a two-out rally in the eighth with back-to-back singles from Volpe and Alex Verdugo.
Judge then worked a 10-pitch walk to load the bases, but Blake Treinen got Stanton to fly out to end the inning.
The Yankees were getting an up-close look at Yamamoto on the mound for the first time after courting him in the offseason.
The Japanese ace met with the Yankees in Los Angeles in December after the winter meetings and then visited New York for another meeting about a week later.
But he ultimately turned down their 10-year, $300 million offer to sign with the Dodgers on a 12-year, $325 million contract.
Yamamoto, who heard plenty of boos from the home crowd when he was introduced before the game, rose to the occasion with his best start as a major leaguer, tossing seven shutout innings in which he allowed just two hits and two walks while striking out seven.
The 5-foot-10 right-hander seemed to have some extra juice for the big matchup.
He came into the start averaging 95.3 mph on his four-seam fastball but averaged 97 mph on it Friday night, one of the six different pitches he employed.
Yamamoto engaged in a pitchers’ duel with Cody Poteet, making his second straight start in place of the injured Clarke Schmidt.
Poteet cruised through four innings before giving up a walk and a single with two outs in the fifth.
With Shohei Ohtani due up, Aaron Boone called on lefty reliever Victor Gonzalez to face his former team.
Gonzalez made quick work of Ohtani, getting a ground ball to first base to end the threat.
Then in the sixth, Michael Tonkin relieved Gonzalez with a runner on first and one out and retired a pair of batters.
Tonkin came back out for the seventh and gave up a two-out double to Kiké Hernandez, but stayed in to face Mookie Betts.
With the crowd rising to its feet on a 2-2 count, Tonkin got Betts to ground out to send a roar through the stadium.
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