Gerrit Cole, Trent Grisham moments seal Yankees' embarrassing loss to Dodgers

The Yankees were riding a four-game winning streak heading into the second half ... and they just flushed that momentum away in a flash. They fell to the Los Angeles Dodgers by a score of 2-1 on Friday night, but it was the manner in which they loss that was crushing.

It feels like this is the typical Yankees loss over the last six years. Cling to a razor thin lead (no matter how favorable the matchup is), endure an embarrassing moment late, and then fail to punch back. That was the blueprint in the series opener.

This one featured Gerrit Cole vs Roki Sasaki, the latter of whom was sporting a 5.33 ERA before the game began. Care to guess how he performed? Not only was he pumping 102 MPH (his fastest pitches of the season), but he didn't allow an earned run across 5 2/3 innings.

The one run scored because of an error on Andy Pages and a passed ball by Dalton Rushing. That was all the offense the Yankees generated. Six hits, three walks, eight strikeouts, 0-for-4 with RISP, six runners left on base. It wasn't until the sixth inning they got multiple runners on base against Sasaki.

Cole out-dueled Sasaki ... until he didn't. In the seventh inning, after (of course) walking the leadoff hitter as he approached 100 pitches, Cole stood on the mound as Aaron Boone walked from the dugout to remove him from the game. The right-hander convinced his manager to keep him in, though, despite lefty slugger Max Muncy stepping into the batter's box. Boone clearly wanted to call on Brent Headrick, but Cole won the argument. Care to guess what happened next?

Cole grooved a 90 MPH meatball slider over the plate and Muncy crushed it for the game-winning two-run homer.

Yankees' series-opening loss to Dodgers was a classic New York choke job

Every time a Yankees pitcher convinces Boone to keep them in the game, they falter. It's like clockwork. And we're not even blaming Boone! We think it's admirable from both parties! It just never works out.

It was only the seventh inning, though. The Yankees had a chance to come back. And they threatened in the bottom of the eighth against lefty reliever Alex Vesia. He walked Trent Grisham with one out to bring Ben Rice to the plate. Rice clobbered a double into the right-center field gap, but Grisham decided to stare at the ball instead of run. He kept looking back after he rounded second base too, for whatever reason. And then, when the ball was being relayed in and Grisham hadn't built enough cushion, third base coach Luis Rojas sent him home anyway. Mookie Betts made an incredible athletic play to throw him out, and it wasn't particularly close.

YES Network showed a replay after of Grisham's effort from first to third, and it was terrible. That's on him. But Rojas should have noticed that. The send is on him. He needs to know Grisham is, quite literally, one of the worst baserunners in the entire sport.

After that, it was over. Rice was stranded at second base after Cody Bellinger flied out on the first pitch he saw. And the effort in the ninth inning might as well have featured the local beer league champs facing Tanner Scott.

There are two more primetime games against the Dodgers on Saturday and Sunday. We know how the Yankees fare in those, don't we? Forgive us if we sound overly negative, but we've seen this movie before. And, oh yeah, the Red Sox won again to officially climb back to .500. That made it all the more worse.

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