Aaron Judge, Gerrit Cole and Jake Bauers lead Yankees over Dodgers

LOS ANGELES — Jake Bauers had never played in a major league game at Dodger Stadium until Friday, but the Yankees outfielder is no stranger to Chavez Ravine.

Bauers, a Newport Beach native who starred for Marina High School in Huntington Beach, played for a CIF Southern Section Division 1 championship at the ballpark as a high school senior in 2013. While Marina did not come away with a section title, Bauers called the contest at Dodger Stadium “a great game, and “an emotional one,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

Bauers must have felt the same way during Saturday’s game at Dodger Stadium, as he recorded the first multi-homer game of his career with a pair of two-run bombs off Los Angeles starter Michael Grove.

The first blast came in the second inning and traveled 414 feet at 107.6 miles per hour. The second landed 409 feet away and left Bauers’ bat at 109.2 mph. He admired both shots to right field, which propelled the Yankees to a 6-3, series-tying victory.

Bauers began the season at Triple-A, where the 27-year-old crushed nine home runs over 21 games. The outfielder/first baseman came into this season with 328 games of major league experience with Tampa Bay, Cleveland and Seattle, but he didn’t suit up for the Yankees until April 29 of this year after spending all of 2022 in the minor leagues.

Bauers is only hitting .237 with an .889 OPS in 26 games, but he’s been productive over his last five appearances, going 6-for-13 (.462) with two doubles, three dingers and seven RBI.

Aaron Judge added a solo homer for the Yankees in the sixth inning, which gave them some wiggle room after Gerrit Cole’s early exit quickly led to two Dodgers runs in the seventh.

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Cole, who also hails from Newport Beach, pitched well for six innings, allowing four hits and one run while walking two and striking out five. But he left after a season-low 80 pitches due to cramping, according to The Athletic and Fox’s Ken Rosenthal.

With Cole out of the game, the Dodgers’ jumped on Wandy Peralta, who didn’t record an out and surrendered an RBI triple to Miguel Vargas. Michael King then gave up an RBI single to Miguel Rojas before stopping the bleeding. Both runs went to Peralta.

The Dodgers’ first run came in the second inning when David Peralta hit a blooper off Cole.

Los Angeles threatened again in the eighth with King still on the mound, but a miraculous running catch from Judge took a hit away from J.D. Martinez and helped the Yankees avoid more damage.

Judge, another California native, barged into the Bombers’ bullpen gate upon colliding with it, and he stumbled through the doorway as the barrier unexpectedly swung open. But Judge hung onto the ball, giving him his second highlight-reel snare of this road trip after robbing a home run in Seattle.

The Yankees weren’t done there, as the recently demoted Oswaldo Cabrera provided one more insurance run with a homer in the ninth.

With the series now tied at one, the Yankees will look to leave Los Angeles with a win on Sunday. Domingo German will face Bobby Miller in the finale before the Yanks return home.