Cam Schlitter gave up one run and two hits in eight superb innings, and the New York Yankees scored five two-out runs in the 10th in a series-clinching, 6-3 victory over the Angels on Wednesday night at Angel Stadium.
New York loaded the bases with one out in the 10th when Jose Caballero singled, the automatic runner holding at third, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. walked against reliever Luke Murphy (0-2).
Murphy got Luis Garcia Jr. to pop out, but Austin Wells stroked a two-run single to right, Cody Bellinger hit an RBI single to center, Trent Grisham hit an RBI single to left, and Ben Rice had an RBI single to right for a 6-1 lead.
David Bednar (7-3) struck out three in a scoreless ninth for the win. Yankees reliever Michael Fulmer gave up a two-run homer to Moisés Ballesteros in the bottom of the 10th, but New York won its second straight after dropping the opener, despite enthusiasm in Anaheim over an announced agreement for Arte Moreno to sell the team to Rams owner Stan Kroenke.
A marquee matchup between two of baseball’s best pitchers did not disappoint, Schlittler striking out nine and walking none, and Angels left-hander Reid Detmers giving up one run and six hits in seven innings, striking out eight and walking none.
Schlittler, who has an American League-leading 2.04 ERA, retired 20 of the first 21 batters he faced, his only blemish a soft single to left by Vaughn Grissom in the second inning.
But Schlittler grooved a 95-mph cutter to Grissom in the seventh, and the Angels first baseman drove it over the center-field wall for a a 1-1 tie.
It was Schlittler’s franchise-record 19th start this season in which he has given up one or no runs, moving him ahead of Ron Guidry (1978), Whitey Ford (1964) and Jack Chesbro (1904), who had 18 each.
Detmers, who has a major league-best 1.52 ERA since the All-Star break, gave up a run in the fourth on Amed Rosario’s double.
The game was delayed for about 10 minutes in the sixth when a 79.5-mph line drive off the bat of Rice hit a photographer in the head in the first-base camera well. The photographer was able to walk to a medical emergency vehicle and shake Rice’s hand before being carted away.
Spencer Jones homered and drove in three runs, Jazz Chisholm Jr. also went deep and finished with three hits, and the New York Yankees pulled away Tuesday night for a 7-3 victory over the Angels.
Jones and Chisholm launched back-to-back homers to give Gerrit Cole a 3-0 lead before even throwing a pitch in his latest return home. New York moved four games ahead of rival Boston for the top American League wild card and remained 4 1/2 games behind first-place Tampa Bay in the AL East.
A day that began with Kroenke Sports and Entertainment, led by Rams owner Stan Kroenke, reaching an agreement to acquire a controlling interest in the Angels from owner Arte Moreno ended with the struggling Angels losing for the ninth time in 11 games.
Cole (8-7) gave up three runs and eight hits in 5 1/3 innings, striking out five and walking one. Brent Headrick, Paul Blackburn and John Schreiber held the Angels to one hit the rest of the way.
Angels starter Grayson Rodriguez (4-6) gave up four runs and seven hits in six innings, striking out seven and walking two.
The Angels trailed 4-1 when Wade Meckler, who had three hits, opened the sixth with a single. Moisés Ballesteros singled and Christian Moore sliced a two-run triple to right field that eluded a diving Jones and trimmed the deficit to 4-3.
Cole was pulled in favor of Headrick, who stranded Moore by striking out pinch-hitter Jose Siri and getting Oswald Peraza to fly out.
New York pushed the lead to 6-3 in the eighth when Jones walked, Chisholm singled and Trent Grisham, mired in a two-for-42 slump, fouled off two bunt attempts before hitting an RBI single. Ryan McMahon loaded the bases with a bunt single and Paul Goldschmidt hit a sacrifice fly.
Consecutive singles by Cody Bellinger, who had three of New York’s 14 hits, Luis García Jr. and Jones made it 7-3 in the ninth.
The Yankees took a 3-0 lead in the first. Bellinger singled before Jones hit a two-run homer — his second longball in two nights — and Chisholm followed with an opposite-field shot into the left-field corner.
Ben Rice singled in the third, went to third on Bellinger’s single and scored on García’s double-play grounder for a 4-0 advantage.
The Angels pulled to 4-1 in the bottom half when Zach Neto singled, stole second and scored on Meckler’s two-out single.
Up next
Yankees RHP Cam Schlittler (12-6, 2.09 ERA) faces LHP Reid Detmers (4-8, 3.54) in Wednesday night’s series finale.
Vaughn Grissom drove in four runs, rookie Walbert Ureña pitched seven strong innings and the Angels ended a seven-game losing streak with a 10-1 victory over the sloppy New York Yankees on Monday night.
Mike Trout had a two-run single and Christian Moore drove in a pair of runs as the Angels won at home for the first time since Aug. 15. Ureña (9-9) gave up five hits with no walks and eight strikeouts.
Elmer Rodríguez (0-3) failed to make it out of the fourth for the Yankees (78-60), giving up four runs and four hits with three walks over 3⅔ innings. It was the shortest of his six career starts since making his major league debut in April.
Spencer Jones homered for the Yankees, who committed three errors after scoring a combined 25 runs in consecutive wins over the rival Boston Red Sox at home last weekend. New York is three games ahead of Boston for the top American League wild-card spot and 4½ games behind first-place Tampa Bay in the AL East.
The Angels (53-85) took a 1-0 lead in the third on Grissom’s run-scoring single. Zach Neto had an RBI single in the fourth after both Oswald Peraza and Tyler Heineman were hit by pitches from Rodríguez with two outs.
Trout added his two-run single in the fourth for his first multi-RBI hit since a two-run homer on July 8.
Jones connected in the fifth to make it 4-1.
Moore had a bloop RBI double in the bottom of the fifth and scored on an errant pickoff throw to second by Michael Fulmer. Neto scored in the sixth for a 7-1 lead when Yankees shortstop José Caballero made two errors on what could have been an inning-ending double-play grounder by Grissom.
In the eighth, Grissom made it 9-1 with a two-run double off the wall in left field and Moore added an RBI single. Grissom finished with three hits and scored twice.
Up next: Yankees RHP Gerrit Cole (7-3, 3.19 ERA) faces Angels RHP Grayson Rodriguez (4-5, 6.03) in the middle game of the series Tuesday.
It’s right there in the medical books, along with Belsey fundoplication, Heineke-Mikulicz pyloroplasty and Keller’s excision arthroplasty: Tommy John surgery.
Purists might refer to it as ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction, but the rest of the world knows it as the career-saving surgery named for a sore-armed left-handed Dodgers pitcher.
Tommy John was facing the bleak reality that his career was likely over when he ruptured a ligament in his left elbow on a summer night in 1974, an injury that had sent so many pitchers into an early retirement. But a then-radical surgery not only saved but revived his career, as well as the careers of hundreds of baseball players ranging from Tom Candiotti to John Smoltz to Shohei Ohtani in the 50 years since.
Always more famous for the surgical procedure than his career stats, John died Saturday, the Dodgers announced. He was 83.
“We are saddened to hear the news of Tommy John’s passing,” Dodgers president and CEO Stan Kasten said in a statement. “… Tommy was an exceptional pitcher throughout his career in Major League Baseball and his courageous role in becoming the first to have surgery that would go on to bear his name can’t be overstated. His impact both on and off the field has been felt by ballplayers of all ages and will be for generations to come.”
A good pitcher before the surgery with 124 wins in 12 seasons with three teams, he won 164 more afterward — only one fewer than Sandy Koufax during his entire career, he liked to point out — in 14 more seasons with four teams, finally retiring at 46 with a 288-231 record and a 3.34 earned-run average.
“Dr. Jobe made it so I could throw a baseball again,” John told The Times’ Sam Farmer in 2023 from his home in Sarasota, Fla. “After surgery, I never missed a start, and I even pitched out of the bullpen every once in a while.”
He pitched for the Dodgers and the Angels and had two successful stints with the New York Yankees but it was with the Dodgers that he had his greatest success, an 87-42 record and a 2.97 ERA, helping them to consecutive World Series appearances.
It was also as a Dodger that he had his history-making operation.
He came to the Dodgers in a trade from the Chicago White Sox in December 1971 with an 84-91 record, a good curveball and a less than intimidating fastball. Pitching coach Red Adams convinced him that precision location and ball movement were more effective than raw speed and John went 11-5 the following season. He also became well acquainted with orthopedist Frank Jobe, the team physician.
Late in the season, he jammed his left elbow sliding into home plate, jarring loose some bone chips. Jobe cleaned things up for John during the offseason.
Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda congratulates Tommy John after John shut out the Phillies during 1978 National League Championship Series.
(Associated Press)
Then in July 1974, by which time John had become a mainstay in the pitching rotation, he threw a pitch to Hal Breeden of the Montreal Expos that changed his life, and ultimately the lives of many others.
“Right at the point where I put force on the pitch, the point where my arm is back and bent, something happened,” he told Sports Illustrated. “It felt as if I had left my arm somewhere else. It was as if my body continued to go forward and my left arm had just flown out to right field, independent of the rest of me.
“I heard this thudding sound in my elbow, then I felt a sharp pain.”
John had ruptured the medial ulnar collateral ligament in his left elbow, although he didn’t know that then. The pitch, of course, was nowhere near the strike zone and, despite the pain and in an effort to see if that was a fluke, he tried to throw another. It bounced off the plate, ending his outing and, for all anyone knew, his pitching career.
Jobe recommended total rest but after a month, with no sign of healing, he came up with an outside-the-box suggestion. Earlier, Jobe had grafted a tendon to a recovered polio patient’s ankle to provide stabilization. He thought maybe a tendon could be grafted to a pitcher’s elbow as well.
He gave John a grim choice: Do nothing and never pitch again, or try the surgery at 100-1 odds against success.
“I told Dr. [Frank] Jobe if you do your job I will do more than mine,” John told The Times last year. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right doctor and team.”
So, on Sept. 25, 1974, Jobe took a tendon from John’s right arm, threaded it through holes he had drilled in John’s left elbow and hoped it all would work.
Nerve damage necessitated a second surgery several months later and the prospects were not promising. John’s left arm had atrophied, his hand now basically a claw, and two of his fingers were numb.
Even so, he began rehab, knowing he would miss the entire 1975 season. He taped the unfeeling fingers to the functioning ones so that he could grip a baseball, then, resembling “a little boy throwing against the steps of his back porch,” threw against a wall. He squeezed Silly Putty and strictly adhered to a physical therapy regimen.
By June 1975 he had regained the use of his entire hand and in late September pitched three innings in an exhibition game. He continued his routine through the offseason and into spring training, once joking, “When they operated on my arm, I asked them to put in a Koufax fastball. They did but it turned out to be Mrs. Koufax.”
Surprising many, who considered it at least a minor miracle, he was back in the rotation at the start of the 1976 season and went five innings in his first start, giving up five hits and three runs in a loss to the Braves in Atlanta. He finished the season at 10-10 with a 3.09 ERA, and if anyone was still wondering about his comeback, he put doubts to rest in 1977.
In one of his best seasons, he won 20 games, had a 2.78 ERA and finished second in National League Cy Young award voting for the pennant-winning Dodgers. In a 4-1 win over the Philadelphia Phillies in the clinching Game 4 of the NL Championship Series — then a best-of-five format — John pitched a complete game, striking out eight in a 130-pitch effort.
Dodgers pitcher Tommy John celebrates after the final out in a 4-1 victory over the Phillies in Game 4 of the 1977 NLCS that clinched the pennant for the Dodgers.
(Associated Press)
He came back with a 17-victory season in ’78 and the Dodgers won the pennant again but again lost to the Yankees in the World Series, with John winning a game in both the NLCS and World Series. After the season, he signed with New York as a free agent.
He was an immediate hit with the Yankees, winning 21 games in 1979 and finishing second in the American League Cy Young voting, then won 22 in ’80. In 1981, the Yankees reached the World Series, once again facing the Dodgers — and John was at the center of the most controversial decision in the series that ultimately sealed New York’s fate.
John was the starter in Game 6 at Yankee Stadium with the Dodgers leading the series, 3-2. The left-hander had won Game 2, giving up three hits over seven innings in a 3-0 victory, and had completed four innings of one-run ball when Yankees manager Bob Lemon elected to pinch-hit for John with two runners on in a 1-1 game. ABC, which broadcast the World Series that year, showed John looking visibly upset and surprised as he paced the dugout.
Bobby Murcer flied out to right to end the inning, and the Dodgers would score eight runs over the next four innings against an ineffective Yankees bullpen to secure a 9-2 victory and win the franchise’s first World Series since 1965.
“At the time my reaction was, ‘why is he doing this?’ I was pitching fine and you don’t pull someone out in the fourth inning just because you need a hit at the time,” John said last year. “I was not happy, but that was so long ago in retrospect could we have won? I think so. Does it matter now? No.”
In John’s two stints with the Yankees — he had four seasons with the Angels in between — he was 91-60 with a 3.59 ERA.
And it was with the Yankees that he made the record book, in a way no player would ever want. He committed three errors in an inning, all on the same play during a game July 27, 1988.
With the Yankees leading the Milwaukee Brewers 4-0 and Jim Gantner on first for the Brewers, John charged a slow roller by Jeffrey Leonard to the first-base side of the mound. First, he bobbled the ball. Then, he sailed it past first baseman Don Mattingly, bouncing it off the right-field ballboy. Dave Winfield made a nice play on the ball and fired a strong throw home. It was on line and probably would have nailed the hustling Gantner but John cut it off, then threw wildly past catcher Don Slaught and into the Brewers’ dugout as Gantner scored.
John’s summation, according to Newsday? “I must have had a metal cup on. It glitched the ions in the air.”
After his playing days, John did some broadcasting, some minor league managing and became a strong advocate for suicide prevention after one of his sons took his own life. And after seeing many young pitchers, some still in their teens, undergo the surgery named for him, he spoke out against arm overuse, recommending less than year-round pitching by young arms.
But regardless of the context, John is forever linked to the operation that continues to be performed by orthopedic surgeons such as Dr. Neal ElAttrache, who began learning how to perform the procedure when he was a fellow at the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopedic Clinic in 1990 from Jobe himself. The two would operate together twice a week throughout the 1990s and were close friends until Jobe’s death in 2014.
“It should have been called the Frank Jobe operation,” ElAttrache told The Times in 2023. “But with Frank being the man he was, it was all about the person he was treating. It wasn’t about him.”
By ElAttrache’s estimation, he has performed the operation between 50 and 75 times per year over his career — including the two he has done on Ohtani, one in 2018 and one in 2023. And although ElAttrache has put his own signatures on the surgery — including a second graft to further fortify Ohtani’s elbow — the operation has remained largely the same since Jobe first performed it in 1974.
John is survived by his wife, Cheryl, and his children, Tommy, Travis and Tamara. A private celebration of his life will be held in Florida.
PHILADELPHIA — The Dodgers’ game against the Phillies on Tuesday began in a rain delay. First pitch would be pushed back to 5 p.m. PDT, the home team announced.
Inclement weather Tuesday afternoon included a flash flood warning in the area and rain in the forecast for much of the evening.
The Dodgers already had one rainout during this East Coast road trip. Their game Saturday against the Yankees was postponed by a day, setting up a doubleheader on Sunday.
NEW YORK — Eliezer Alfonzo jumped on a first-pitch cutter, keeping his hands inside to send it into shallow center field.
Two weeks after making his major-league debut under tragic circumstances, Alfonzo recorded his first major-league hit.
It was a heartwarming moment early in the Dodgers’ 2-1 loss Sunday to the Yankees. By dropping the series finale, the second game of a doubleheader Sunday at Yankee Stadium, the Dodgers settled for a series win instead of sweep at Yankee Stadium.
With starting catcher Will Smith sidelined indefinitely because of a neck injury, Alfonzo has served as the backup to catcher Dalton Rushing for the past two weeks.
The morning of Alfonzo’s debut, his sister and stepmother, who had been missing since two powerful earthquakes devastated Venezuela last month, were found dead. Alfonzo still played, honoring them on the field.
Alfonzo’s familiarity with the Dodgers pitching staff from the time he spent on the major-league side in spring training this year has helped provide some measure of stability in Smith’s absence. But he had yet to contribute on the offensive side, going 0 for 9.
Until the third inning of Game 2 Sunday.
Alfonzo rounded first base, kissed his closed right hand and pointed to the sky. Then he turned to the visitors dugout, grinned and lifted both fists above his head.
His teammates made sure to get the ball back. And Teoscar Hernández held it up to show him.
Alfonzo’s two-out single didn’t start a rally. But in the bottom of the fourth, he helped squash one.
Dodgers right-hander Edgardo Henriquez’s command was faltering, to the tune of back-to-back walks and a wild pitch. Then with runners on second and third, he induced José Caballero to hit a grounder to third baseman Max Muncy.
Anthony Volpe, the Yankees’ baserunner on third, took off on contact. Muncy threw on the run to Alfonzo, who was set up on the inside of the basepath. Alfonzo made a diving tag on Volpe to prevent a run.
Throwing a bullpen game, the Dodgers (63-37) used seven pitchers, who combined to limit the Yankees (55-44) to two runs through eight innings. Brock Stewart had a standout performance, entering the fifth with no outs and the bases loaded and retiring three straight batters. He then threw a clean sixth. Alex Vesia struck out the side in the seventh.
Utility man Tommy Edman’s pinch-hit homer in the eighth tied the score. But the next inning, Yankees star Jazz Chisholm Jr. hit a solo homer off Evan Phillips.
NEW YORK — The Dodgers’ game against the New York Yankees on Saturday in the Bronx was rained out and rescheduled as the first game in a split doubleheader Sunday.
It was the Dodgers’ first postponement of the season.
They are set to play Game 1 at 9:35 a.m. PDT Sunday, followed by Game 2 at 4:20 p.m.
Saturday’s game was originally scheduled to air on Fox at 5:08 p.m. PDT. But with persistent showers in the forecast, the decision to postpone was made official more than three hours before game time.
Dodgers right-hander Emmett Sheehan (4-6, 4.81 ERA) was scheduled to take the mound opposite Yankees lefty Ryan Weathers on Saturday. The Dodgers didn’t immediately announce how the doubleheader might affect their starting pitching plans.
NEW YORK — Dodgers All-Star third baseman Max Muncy didn’t get a break this week, traveling to Philadelphia to compete in the Midsummer Classic. But even without the extra rest, he put a charge into his go-ahead swing Friday.
The Dodgers struggled against veteran Yankees starter Gerrit Cole — until he hung a slider to Muncy in the seventh inning. Muncy launched it for a two-run blast to carry the Dodgers to a 2-1 victory.
“Anytime you can find a way to win a game when Gerrit Cole’s pitching, it’s a good thing,” manager Dave Roberts said.
Between the come-from-behind win, a strong showing from Dodgers starter Roki Sasaki and a defensive turnaround, the Dodgers (62-36) came out of the All-Star break on a positive note.
It was clear early on that Sasaki, who didn’t give up an earned run in 5 ⅔ innings, had something a little extra.
Pitching at Yankee Stadium for the first time, he punctuated a clean first inning by getting ahead of Paul Goldschmidt with 101.8- and 101.7-mph fastballs, en route to a five-pitch strikeout.
“I got a big smile on my face when I saw 102,” Roberts said.
It was the first time Sasaki topped 101 mph in a regular-season game, according to Statcast. He threw 21 pitches at 100 mph or harder, the most of any Dodger since pitch tracking began in 2008. Sasaki pointed to the rest he got over the All-Star break and a delivery tweak for his increase in velocity.
“I kind of changed the way I use my lower body,” Sasaki said. “So I’m really happy to get that velo up.”
The Yankees (54-43) scored their only run against Sasaki by taking advantage of a pair of defensive mistakes.
With two outs in the fourth, center fielder Andy Pages bobbled Jasson Domínguez’s double in right-center field, giving him time to get to third. The next pitch, a forkball, got past catcher Dalton Rushing, and Domínguez raced home.
Pages later found some redemption with a defensive gem to end the fifth. He made a full-speed tumbling catch in the right-field gap to rob Austin Wells of an extra-base hit.
Cole held the Dodgers to just four hits in six-plus innings. Before the seventh, only one Dodgers runner reached second base, when Kyle Tucker and Teoscar Hernández hit back-to-back singles in the second.
Cole came back out for the seventh and walked Mookie Betts to lead off the inning. After a mound visit, he stayed in to face Muncy.
“It was a tough decision for [Yankees manager Aaron Boone],” Roberts said. “You’re thinking about going to the ‘pen, or do you let your ace go after Max and Tucker. And Max spoiled some good pitches and then got a pitch in his wheelhouse and put a good swing on it.”
Muncy fell into a two-strike count, but he kept battling. On the seventh pitch, he saw something he could drive — 416 feet at a 30-degree launch angle, to be exact.
“The swing felt great,” Muncy said on the Spectrum SportsNet LA broadcast. “The result was better and it gave us a chance to win.”
Dodgers relievers Jack Dreyer, Alex Vesia and Tanner Scott chipped in a combined 3⅓ scoreless innings to secure the win. The Yankees came inches away from tying the score in the eighth, but the Dodgers, shaking off their pre-All-Star break rough patch, delivered on defense.
With Trent Grisham on first after a walk, Ben Rice hit a double into the right-field gap off Vesia. Pages chased down the ball and quickly fired to shortstop Betts, who threw it home. Rushing’s sweeping tag beat Grisham to the plate.
“I think it was huge,” Betts said. “We still had a couple mishaps in this game. We’ve got to clean that up for sure. You can’t win a World Series doing what we did today. But we’ll keep working and try to clean it up.”
