LOS ANGELES _ The people started streaming for the exits during the top of the ninth inning Sunday after the New York Yankees, the better goliath for at least the weekend, tacked on their final run at Dodger Stadium. They produced it in opportunistic fashion, the way runs must come so often in the postseason, when games like this heavyweight tilt matter beyond bragging rights and tiebreakers.
Brett Gardner singled in a left-on-left matchup, advanced from first to third on Adam Kolarek's wild attempt to pick him off, then scored on a flare off Gio Urshela's bat just over a drawn-in infield. After pounding Los Angeles Dodgers pitching with nine home runs in three games, the Yankees claimed perhaps the most anticipated regular season series on the baseball calendar two games to one with a 5-1 victory.
The Dodgers, mired in their deepest teamwide slump this season, scored five runs in the three-game set and have tallied 10 in their last five games. On Sunday, they failed to support another strong outing from Clayton Kershaw.
Kershaw's performance befitted baseball in 2019. The left-hander compiled a season-high 12 strikeouts while walking none but also gave up three solo home runs. He has logged at least six innings in each of his 23 starts this season and given up three solo homers in each of his last two. The damage was loud but limited. And it was enough because the Dodgers (86-46) couldn't solve Domingo German and the Yankees' dynamite bullpen.
German gave up a leadoff home run to Joc Pederson in the first inning and nothing after that across his six innings. He posted five strikeouts, walked two, and threw just 85 pitches, capitalizing on the Dodgers' atypical impatience at the plate.
While the clubs spent the weekend acknowledging the series invoked a playoff feel, both sides also maintained it was just three regular-season games. But something was at stake Sunday. The winner would claim not only a marquee triumph, but the tiebreaker for home-field advantage in the World Series should both teams finish with the same regular season record and capture their respective pennants.
The Dodgers have watched their opponent celebrate a World Series title on their home turf the last two seasons, but that does not diminish the luxury of home-field advantage. It's a fewer flight to take. It's more hours in your own bed. It's playing in front of a rambunctious crowd in your corner one more time. And for the Dodgers it's a chance to play in a building in which they entered Sunday's series finale with a league-best 52-17 home record.
"It matters," Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner said before Sunday's game. "One-hundred percent."
Kershaw's season, one in which he's maintained excellence by becoming more unpredictable to counter a diminished arsenal, went from nursing a grim shoulder injury in spring training to supplying a quality performance nearly every time out. He made his eighth All-Star team, is on the fringes of the Cy Young Award race, and began Sunday with a 2.71 earned-run average. But he has consistently encountered turbulence in the first inning.
The left-hander entered Sunday with a 5.73 ERA in the first inning _ over two runs higher than any other inning. The number grew again Sunday when D.J. LaMahieu cracked the game's third pitch _ a curveball from Kershaw _ over the left-field wall to give the Yankees (85-47) a quick lead. Of the 20 home runs Kershaw has allowed this season, seven were slugged in the first inning. He has allowed three leadoff home runs this season after surrendering four in his first 11 seasons combined.
Aaron Judge doubled the Yankees' output in the third inning by blasting another Kershaw curveball for his third solo home run of the series. It marked the sixth time Kershaw gave up multiple home runs in a game this season and the fourth home run he's surrendered on a curveball.
Pederson responded to LeMahieu's leadoff salvo with his own leadoff homer in the bottom of the first to knot the score, briefly suggesting a tit-for-tat finale between the clubs with the two best records in baseball. But the Dodgers went silent from there until Will Smith swung through a 99-mph fastball from Aroldis Chapman to end the weekend.
