The Yankees needed length from Bellinger and a full bullpen effort just to get to the moment that mattered, and for a second straight game against the Dodgers, the lineup made it as hard as possible on itself. Cody Bellinger got things rolling early, but early leads have felt like a novelty for this offense lately.
Bellinger's first-inning blast put the Yankees up 1-0, a rare sight for an offense that's been living on fumes.
That lead didn't hold. Tommy Edman tied it up with an 8th-inning shot off the Yankees' bullpen, a 387-foot drive that erased what little cushion New York had built. It's been the story of the season without their captain in the lineup: the Yankees just can't put teams away.
Edman's game-tying homer in the 8th flipped the mood in the Bronx in an instant.
Jazz Chisholm Jr. answered right back, ripping a 402-foot homer at 105.3 mph off the bat to put the Yankees back in front 2-1. It was his 3rd game-winning homer in the 8th inning or later this season, tying him for the MLB lead in that department -- a stat that says as much about how many close games this team is playing as it does about Chisholm's flair for the moment.
David Bednar had to bail the bullpen out to hold it, working around trouble in a shaky 8th before slamming the door. It's the pattern right now: pitching keeps bailing out an offense that can't finish what it starts, and it's not a formula anyone in the Bronx wants to lean on for the long haul.
Aaron Judge has been out since early June with a fractured rib, and the Yankees have gone a mediocre 18-20 without him, now sitting 2.5 games back of the Rays in the AL East. That context is exactly why the mood after a win still felt uneasy -- clutch homers are fun, but they're papering over an offense that isn't generating the kind of steady pressure a lineup with Judge in it usually does.
The verdict from the podcast desk: the Yankees can survive stretches like this, but catching Tampa Bay without Judge isn't happening.
Nobody's arguing the Yankees can't win games like this one. They just did. The question hanging over the whole operation is whether wins built on a walk-off-caliber homer and a white-knuckle bullpen escape are sustainable against a division race that isn't waiting around for Judge's rib to heal.