The last time baseball’s two biggest juggernauts faced each other in the Bronx, it ended with the Los Angeles Dodgers celebrating.
The Dodgers’ come-from-behind win in Game 5 of the 2024 World Series clinched a series victory over the Yankees and produced the prevailing image of Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and their teammates reveling on the Yankee Stadium diamond.
The stakes aren’t nearly as high this time around as the Yankees host the Dodgers to open the season’s second half.
But the three-game series beginning Friday night should nonetheless help show how the championship-hopeful Yankees measure up to a mighty Dodgers team that’s won the last two World Series and boasts MLB’s best record this year, too.
“It will be a lot of fun,” Yankees first baseman Ben Rice said. “You always want to see how you’re stacking up against the best teams in the league, and playing LA is always a good series. We’re looking forward to it.”
Gerrit Cole (3-4, 4.04 ERA) is set to start Friday night for the Yankees, while 24-year-old Roki Sasaki (3-5, 5.33 ERA) is lined up for Los Angeles.
Ryan Weathers (3-7, 4.15 ERA) is scheduled to start Saturday night opposite the Dodgers’ Emmet Sheehan (4-6, 4.81 ERA), who was born in New York and grew up in Darien, Conn.
And Sunday night’s series finale features a premium pitching matchup, with the Yankees’ Cam Schlittler (9-5, 2.05 ERA) and the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto (9-6, 2.85 ERA) set to duel.
The latest renewal of this decades-old rivalry loses some of its luster because of injuries on both sides — and particularly to the Yankees (54-42).
Back-to-back American League MVP Aaron Judge remains on the injured list due to a right rib stress fracture, denying baseball another chance to see him share the field with Ohtani, the back-to-back National League MVP.
Giancarlo Stanton (calf) and Carlos Rodón (elbow inflammation) — both of whom played significant roles in that 2024 World Series — are also on the IL, as is Max Fried (elbow bone bruise), who joined the Yankees before the 2025 season.
Meanwhile, the Dodgers (61-36) are without catcher Will Smith, frontline starters Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow, and closer Edwin Diaz, whom they signed away from the Mets last offseason.
But there’s still plenty of star power, starting with the two-way Ohtani, who has 22 home runs and a .953 OPS as a hitter and is 8-2 with a 1.79 ERA as a pitcher. Ohtani skipped this week’s All-Star Game due to left knee irritation, and while he won’t pitch this weekend, manager Dave Roberts said the designated hitter will be in the lineup.
Freeman, Yamamoto, Mookie Betts, Teoscar Hernandez and Max Muncy remain from that Dodgers’ 2024 championship team as well, while Kyle Tucker — who has disappointed with seven home runs and a .716 OPS — is in the first season of a four-year, $240 million contract.
With a $419.6 million payroll (including the competitive-balance tax, per Cot’s Contracts), the deep-pocketed Dodgers are at the center of the MLB owners’ push to implement a salary cap, which the players union staunchly rejects.
All of the focus this weekend, though, will be about the fight on the field between two title contenders.
“It’s the best team, best record in the big leagues. We’re gonna have to come out ready. You know they’re gonna come out ready,” said Yankees outfielder Cody Bellinger, who spent his first six seasons with the Dodgers — a tenure in which he won the 2019 NL MVP and the 2020 World Series.
“The All-Star break is great, and you get to enjoy it, but at the end of the day, once Friday comes, it’s right back to it.”
Even before the injuries, the Yankees’ roster is considerably different from the one that went to the 2024 World Series.
Gone are Juan Soto, Anthony Rizzo and Gleyber Torres.
Rice, a rookie in 2024, wasn’t on that World Series roster. Bellinger was a Chicago Cub at that point. Schlittler was more than eight months away from his MLB debut.
Bellinger and Rice did, however, face the Dodgers in Los Angeles last season — a series in which L.A. took two of three.
“They’ve got a great lineup, a great rotation,” said Schlittler, who will be facing the Dodgers for the first time. “They’re definitely a top-three team in the league. It will be a good test for us. We’ve got to try and step up to that hype and play our game.”