Three takeaways from Yankees' World Series Game 2 loss to Dodgers

LOS ANGELES — After another day and another loss, 4-2 in Game 2 of the World Series on Saturday night, the Yankees have a tall task ahead: Win four of the next five against the Dodgers or face the failure of extending their championship drought.

“It's a long series,” manager Aaron Boone said. “And we need to make it a long series now. We won't flinch.”

Here are three takeaways as the series shifts to New York, beginning with Game 3 on Monday night.

1. Shohei Ohtani’s status hovers over everything.

Aside from the scores, this was by far the biggest development to come out of the first leg of the Fall Classic.

Ohtani partially dislocated his left shoulder on a steal attempt in the seventh inning of Game 2. He was due for an MRI on Sunday, with Dodgers manager Dave Roberts probably due to provide an update at his evening news conference. Roberts said Saturday night that “we’re encouraged” that maybe Ohtani isn’t that hurt, but the reality was they didn’t know.

Given that Ohtani is the Dodgers’ best player — and the best player in the world — his playing at partial strength or not at all would be a big boost for the Yankees, who need all the help they can get.

2. Juan Soto can’t do it alone.

He tried in Game 2, though, finishing 2-for-4 and scoring both runs (including on a tying home run in the third inning). The rest of the Yankees went 2-for-27.

Soto’s numbers on the postseason: .350 average, 1.160 OPS, four homers, nine RBIs. As much as he always was going to get paid as a free agent this offseason, that seems truer every night lately.

He could use some help, though. Aaron Judge (.150 average, .605 OPS, 19 strikeouts in 40 at-bats) remains the most egregious offender. Jazz Chisholm Jr. is batting .186 with a .518 OPS. Anthony Volpe has had a couple of quiet games and Austin Wells has been pretty much a non-factor.

The Yankees put the potential go-ahead run on base in the ninth, but moral victories count for even less in late October.

“We gave ourselves a chance to get right back in it and even win that game off a very good reliever,” Boone said. “I loved the at-bats there at the end, the compete, the fight.”

3. Yoshinobu Yamamoto has been a problem . . . and might be again next week.

The bad news for the Yankees is that Yamamoto, whom they tried hard to sign last offseason, has owned them across two starts in his rookie year: 13 1/3 innings, one run.

The worse news is they’ll have to face him again — if the series lasts that long — in Game 6 on Friday at Dodger Stadium.

“He was on his game,” Boone said. “The first few innings, we took a lot of good at-bats against him, made him work some longer at-bats. Then once he got a little bit of that lead, he got into a rhythm, really did a good job of attacking at strike one. It was hard to be patient with him when he was on the attack and getting ahead.”

Yamamoto’s performance in Game 2 was the best of his four postseason outings: 6 1/3 innings, one run, one hit (Soto’s homer). He walked two — including the first batter of the game, Gleyber Torres — and struck out four.

It was the first time Yamamoto pitched past the fifth inning since June 7 — when he dominated the Yankees for seven scoreless innings at Yankee Stadium. He missed most of the intervening months because of a shoulder strain, and the Dodgers have been careful with his workload since he returned.

By Tim Healey

timothy.healey@newsday.com@timbhealey

Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.