NEW YORK — Hoping for at least one more at-bat before free agency, Juan Soto stood in the on-deck center with his Yankees helmet on his head and his bat in his arms watching the Dodgers jump up and down near the pitcher’s mound. Anthony Volpe stood and watched from the Yankees dugout with tears in his eyes, while Aaron Judge headed for the clubhouse without looking.
This was the late-night scene last Oct. 30 at Yankee Stadium when the Dodgers won the World Series after rallying from 5-0 down in the Game 5 clincher.
Away from the celebration, Dodgers pitcher Walker Buechler stood with his arms raised high. A starter pitching in relief, the right-hander killed the Yankees’ season by pitching a 1-2-3 ninth with two strikeouts to seal a one-run victory.
Eight months later, Buechler was back in the Bronx on Friday night starting the first Yankees-Red Sox game of the season for his new team.
The Yankees can’t do anything about last season, but they sure made Buehler’s return a nightmare in the first two innings of a 9-6 victory that included an injury scare for Volpe.
The Yankees scored five in the first inning on two homers with two outs, a three-run blast to dead center by Jazz Chisholm and two-run shot to right-center by Volpe.
The Yankees tacked on two more in the second inning to make it 7-0 after a two-out throwing error, the first run scoring on a hit by Chisholm and the next when Buehler hit Volpe in the left elbow with an 88.8-mph changeup.
Volpe played another full inning before being replaced at shortstop in the fourth by Oswald Peraza.
In the sixth inning, the Yankees announced the injury as a contusion while adding Volpe was undergoing X-rays.
Buehler (4-4) was done after two innings on a night flipping the pitching script was a theme for a little while.
Coming off the worst start of his career, Yankees rookie right-hander Will Warren held the Red Sox to one run and two hits through five innings before being knocked out in the sixth when a seven-run lead was cut to 7-4.
Last Saturday, the Dodgers raced to an 18-2 win after Warren was torched for seven runs over 1.1 innings, the first four coming in a 39-pitch first inning.
Against the Red Sox, Warren threw only 12 pitches working a perfect first with two strikeouts on top-of-the-zone 97-mph heaters.
Warren (4-3) wound up with a 5.1 inning, 3-hit, 4-run outing, the last two runs on his ledger occurring when lefty Brent Headrick entered a bases-loaded, one-out jam and was touched for a two-run single by Remy Gonzalez.
With the Red Sox back in the game, Headrick got two strikeouts to end the inning with two runners in scoring position, first Trevor Story and then lefty-killing, pinch-hitter Rob Refsnyder.
The Yankees got one of the runs back in the bottom of the sixth when Paul Goldschmidt hit a leadoff homer, his seventh.
Down 9-4, the Red Sox chipped away some more in the seventh when Headrick hit Jarren Duran with one out and Rafael Devers followed with a two-run homer that made it a three-run game.
From there, the Yankees cruised to the finish line. Fernando Cruz came on pitch to get last two outs of the seventh, Jonathan Loaisiga pitched around a leadoff double in the eighth and – what do you know – Devin Williams worked a scoreless ninth with a hit batter for his seventh save and second in a row since closer Luke Weaver went on the IL this week with a hamstring strain
NOTABLE
— Judge was 3-for-5 with a hustling double and stolen base, raising his MLB-best average from .392 to .397.
— Chisholm was 3-for-4 with his ninth homer, four RBI and a stolen base. Since coming off the IL on Tuesday, he’s 8-for-15 with two homers and six RBI, raising his season average from .181 to .225.
— Trent Grisham, 1-for-4 with a walk, is 2-for-22 in his last six games and batting .155 (11-for-71) with one homer in his last 20 since May 14, a slump that dropped his season average from .294 to .239.
— The Yankees outhit the Red Sox 14-5 on a night all of their starters hit safely.
LOOKING AHEAD
Saturday: Red Sox at Yankees, 7:35 p.m., FOX. LHP Garrett Crochet (5-4, 1.98) vs. LHP Ryan Yarbrough (3-0, 2.83).