Paxton & Yankees Make Major Statement in LA

YANKEES 10 - DODGERS 2 

After a lost series in Oakland where the Yankees starting rotation put the Bombers behind the eight ball early and often, it was James Paxton who came out and delivered easily the most important, if not most impressive outing of the season.

Over 6.2 innings, Paxton shut down the vaunted LA Dodgers lineup, holding them to just a run when he was out on the mound, while racking up 11 strikeouts. It was an impressive showing as he mixed and matched his off-speed stuff, relying heavily on a wicked curveball that kept fooling a Dodger lineup that feeds off the fastball.

If the Yankees get performances like this from Paxton from here on out, and in the playoffs, they will be in a great position to accomplish their mission.

Offensively, the Yankees did plenty of damage to Dodgers starter Hyun-Jin Ryu's Cy Young chances, tagging the righty for seven runs and three homers over 4.1 innings, and increasing his ERA from 1.64 to 2.00.

In fact the five homers the Yankees hit Friday night gave them 56 homers for the month of August, the most homers in a single month by any Yankees team ... ever.

And the power was flexed early and often by the Bombers. In the top of the third inning Aaron Judge crushed a pitch to left-center to open up the scoring. Two batters later, Gary Sanchez dropped to one knee while launching a Ryu fastball into the bleachers in left to give the Yanks a 2-0 lead.

In the fifth inning with the bases loaded with Yankees, Didi Gregorius joined the party with a grand slam homer to left-center to push the lead to 6-1, all but ending the competitive nature of the contest.

The Yankees were far from done of course. A homer by Gleyber Torres in the top of the sixth, and Gregorious' second homer of the night capped off the scoring for New York. Brett Gardner added a RBI double in the fifth, and Judge - a RBI single in the eighth rounded out the multitude of offense on display by the Yankees.

With the victory in hand, the Yankees have sent a stern message to the rest of the sport that they are defiantly the team to beat come October, especially if the pitching can pick it up like it did Friday.