One of baseball’s oldest rivalries is being renewed with the Los Angeles Dodgers hosting the New York Yankees for a three-game Interleague series at Dodger Stadium.
The two teams have met in the World Series 11 times, the most between any pair of National and American League teams in history. The Yankees won eight of those matchups, although the last was in 1981.
Their most recent regular-season meeting was in 2016 at Yankee Stadium, where the Dodgers took two out of three games. Not only is this weekend’s series fun because of the historical rivalry, it is also a matchup of the two best teams in baseball time season.
Per Stats LLC, Friday marks the first Interleague game all-time in which both teams enter 30-plus games over .500. It’s also the latest date that teams with the best record in each league are playing each other in the regular season.
At 85-44, the Dodgers currently have a two-game lead over the Yankees (83-46) for the best record in baseball. Thus, the series could be a huge determining factor of who would have home-field advantage in a potential World Series matchup.
The Dodgers and Yankees will not be wearing their traditional home and away uniforms for this series, though as it is the annual MLB Players Weekend. Players on both teams will have nicknames on the back of their jerseys, and you can see what they all are HERE.
On the mound in the series opener is a matchup of two left-handers in Hyun-Jin Ryu and James Paxton. Ryu comes in as perhaps the leading Cy Young candidate in the NL.
In 23 starts this season, he is 12-3 with a 1.64 ERA, 2.99 FIP and 0.94 WHIP with 126 strikeouts and 18 walks in 148.1 innings. Ryu has been unbeatable at home, going 9-0 with a 0.81 ERA and 0.80 WHIP in 11 starts.
Paxton was the Yankees’ big trade acquisition this past offseason, although it hasn’t quite worked out how they had hoped. In 22 starts, he is 9-6 with a 4.53 ERA, 4.32 FIP and 1.43 WHIP. He has struck out 141 compared to 44 walks in 113.1 innings.
Perhaps the matchup to watch for will be the Yankees bullpen against the Dodgers bats in the late innings. Led by Aroldis Chapman, the Yankees’ 48 saves are the most in baseball this season.
But according to Stats, the Dodgers have had 23 home games this season where they were trailing in the ninth inning or later, and they have won seven of those (30.4%). No MLB team in the live-ball era (since 1920) has won at least 30% of their home games in which they trailed in the ninth inning or later.
The Dodgers come into Friday night’s game winners of three straight after sweeping the Toronto Blue Jays, and the final two wins of the series both came via walk-offs.
Dodgers lineup:
CF: A.J. Pollock (POLLO)
3B: Justin Turner (REDTURN2)
C: Will Smith (SMITTY)
RF: Cody Bellinger (BELLI)
1B: Max Muncy (FUNKY MUNCY)
LF: Chris Taylor (CT3)
SS: Corey Seager (SEAGS)
2B: Kiké Hernandez (KIKÉ)
P: Hyun-Jin Ryu (류현진)
