Prior to this weekend, the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees last met at Yankee Stadium in 2016. MLB’s balanced schedule took the Yankees to Dodger Stadium last season, when they won two of three.
Although just the regular season, there often is considerable buzz whenever the storied rivals face one another. That’s held particularly true this weekend in what’s been dubbed the “Battle in the Bronx.”
Anticipation for the series lived up to the billing on Friday night as the Dodgers clawed out a 2-1 win in 11 innings. They were buoyed by Teoscar Hernández delivering a two-run double in the 11th to break up the scoreless tie.
Following the Dodgers’ victory, Hernández said he expected a tough matchup with the Major League-leading Yankees, per Jack Harris of the L.A. Times:
“I didn’t expect anything less than this, what happened tonight,” Teoscar Hernandez said. “Everybody knows the way they’re playing. They’ve played really good for years. It was not going to be easy to win ballgames. We just felt we needed to play the best we can and score some runs and let the pitching do their job the way they did today.”
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts echoed a similar sentiment:
“Wow, what a game. Man,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I think it’s one of those old adages – good pitching beats good hitting. You can run out as many good hitters as you can find. But if you get a pitcher, or pitchers – and we used a slew of pitchers tonight, both teams – you’re gonna have a good chance to prevent runs.”
Further adding to the magnitude of the weekend series is all three games between the Dodgers and Yankees were selected for national broadcasts. Saturday’s matchup is going to air on Fox, while the series finale is going to be televised by ESPN for “Sunday Night Baseball.”
MLB experimented with Dodgers-Yankees
The series opener was available on Apple TV+ for “Friday Night Baseball” but rather than it being the normal exclusive stream, MLB allowed for SportsNet LA and the YES Network to have their broadcasts as well.
It was the first time a “Friday Night Baseball” game on Apple TV+ was available elsewhere, which came as a decision by MLB to test a new approach.
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