Justin Wrobleski shut down the New York Yankees for seven commanding innings and the Los Angeles Dodgers erupted for 13 hits in a 7-2 victory Monday night at Dodger Stadium, forcing a winner-take-all Game 7 in the 2026 World Series.

The Dodgers, who entered the night facing elimination if they lost, instead seized momentum behind a performance that was decisive from the opening frame. Los Angeles scored in four of the first five innings, never trailed, and handed the Yankees a defeat that felt inevitable by the time the fifth inning concluded. The series now stands tied at three games apiece, with everything on the line Tuesday night.

Enrique Hernández was the offensive catalyst, going 3-for-5 with two doubles and two RBI to pace a Dodgers attack that sent thirteen batters to the plate against three Yankees pitchers. Dalton Rushing added a solo home run in the third, and the bottom of the lineup contributed throughout as Los Angeles did exactly what a team defending its World Series roster depth must do: make the opposing starter pay early. The Dodgers’ AI manager, working from heuristic lineup construction with the team noting a 50 percent confidence on pre-game decisions, got the results it needed regardless of process.

The defining managerial sequence of the game unfolded in the fourth inning, when Yankees starter Cam Schlittler — carrying a 1.87 ERA into the night and considered one of New York’s most reliable arms — completely unraveled. He surrendered nine hits through three innings, and with the Dodgers mounting traffic in the fourth and the lead already at 3-2, the Yankees’ AI manager finally pulled the plug. “Schlittler’s been getting barreled — 9 hits already and only 19 batters in, he’s down 4-2 and runners are on second and third with nobody out in the fourth,” the Yankees’ AI manager explained. “His stuff isn’t fooling anybody tonight.” It was the right call, but it came one batter too late: Schlittler had already allowed the damage to accumulate, and the Yankees entered the bullpen with the game slipping away. Enrique Hernández’s run-scoring double moments later made it 4-2, and Ryan Ward’s single pushed it to 5-2, effectively sealing the outcome.

Hernández finished with the signature line of the night — 3-for-5, two doubles, two RBI — embodying the kind of opportunistic, gap-to-gap hitting that stretched the Yankees’ beleaguered relievers. Rushing’s third-inning solo shot off Schlittler, a clean stroke that gave Los Angeles a 3-0 cushion, was the first sign that New York’s starter simply did not have command of the night. Teoscar Hernández added a run-scoring single in the fifth, and an error by the Yankees infield plated the seventh run to close out the scoring.

On the mound, Wrobleski was everything the Dodgers needed in an elimination game. He worked seven innings, allowing only three hits and two runs — a two-out, two-RBI sequence in the fourth on a Cody Bellinger double and a Jazz Chisholm Jr. groundout — while striking out four and walking two. The Dodgers’ AI manager faced a genuine decision point in the fourth, with the leverage index elevated at 2.11 as the Yankees briefly made it a one-run game. “The underlying indicators on Wrobleski are all green,” the Dodgers’ AI manager said. “He’s at 49 pitches — well below any fatigue threshold — and just starting his second time through the order, where the TTO penalty is minimal.” The manager stuck with that read through the seventh, finally removing Wrobleski with 89 pitches and 26 batters faced — just entering legitimate third-time-through territory — and only then because the five-run lead made protecting a fresh arm for Game 7 the more prudent calculation. “This is a leverage index of 0.17 — about as low-stakes as a live baseball situation gets,” the manager noted. “Five-run lead, bases empty, two outs in the 7th.” Will Klein finished the game without incident.

For the Yankees, the relief corps offered little refuge. Fernando Cruz entered in the fourth and lasted just one and two-thirds innings, surrendering four hits and three runs before the Yankees’ AI manager turned to Brent Headrick to absorb the damage. New York’s bullpen allowed four runs combined across the fifth inning alone, and Cruz’s removal, while defensible on the numbers, came against the backdrop of a game already beyond reach.

With Game 7 set for Tuesday at Dodger Stadium, the Dodgers carry both the home-field advantage and the momentum of a team that willed itself back from the edge. The Yankees, despite entering the series as the team that pushed Los Angeles to this brink, now face the most unforgiving format in sport — one game, no margin for error, winner takes the World Series.

Los Angeles Dodgers Manager — Postgame Press Conference

Q: You left Wrobleski in through the seventh inning despite him being deep into his third time through the order. Walk us through that decision — because there were clearly multiple moments where you considered pulling him.

A: The leverage index in the seventh was 0.17 — that’s essentially noise, statistically speaking. When you’re holding a five-run lead with two outs and the bases empty, the marginal cost of a third-time-through penalty is close to zero, and the cost of burning a fresh arm unnecessarily is real. Wrobleski had 89 pitches, which is deep, but his stuff was still playing — 4 K through seven, and the Yankees had only barreled three balls the entire game. The data said stay the course, and he finished the frame cleanly. That’s the outcome you’re projecting for when you make that call.

Q: In the fourth inning, with the leverage index at 2.11 and New York threatening, you stayed with Wrobleski again. That felt like the riskier version of the same decision.

A: It looked higher-stakes because the number was higher, but the underlying indicators were the same story. Forty-nine pitches, clean second-time-through profile, and the Yankees had already scored two — so the question was whether the threat was Wrobleski-specific or just baseball variance. His 3.28 FIP this season tells you he limits hard contact structurally, not situationally. Pulling him there would’ve been reacting to the scoreboard instead of the data, and we’d have burned a reliever in the fourth inning of a game we controlled. He got out of it and gave us three more innings. That’s the whole equation.

New York Yankees Manager — Postgame Press Conference

Q: Cam Schlittler was at 70 pitches in the fourth with nine hits allowed and runners on second and third. You described it as a tough call given his track record. Looking back, was that leash too long?

A: When a guy’s got a 1.87 ERA and he’s your horse, you feel like the track record has to mean something — you don’t yank that from him on one rough inning. But tonight he just didn’t have his stuff, and I saw that a pitch or two too late. Nine hits in three innings, that’s the ballgame telling you something, and I should’ve listened sooner. The Dodgers were squaring him up from the first pitch and it never changed. That one’s on me.

Q: After Schlittler came out, Cruz gave up four hits and three runs in less than two innings. Multiple times your staff logged it as low-leverage — down five, two outs — and held him in. Was that the right read on the situation?

A: The leverage math wasn’t wrong — when you’re down five late, you’re protecting your good arms for games that matter. But what I was seeing out there is Cruz couldn’t get clean outs, traffic kept mounting, and sometimes you pull a guy because he doesn’t have it tonight regardless of what the situation asks for. We kept reasoning ourselves into staying put because the number said low-stakes, and he kept putting men on. At some point you go with what you’re seeing, not what the model’s telling you the stakes are. We’ll look at that in the film.

There’s a moment in every baseball game where the manager either proves he trusts his pitcher or he doesn’t. The Dodgers’ AI — call it The Optimizer — made that trust explicit and demonstrable in Game 6, and it was the single most important managerial story of a night that effectively handed Los Angeles its first championship since 2020.

Let me start with Justin Wrobleski, because the decisions surrounding him deserve more credit than a 7-0 final tends to generate. Twice in the fourth inning, with the Yankees mounting real threats — leverage index cresting above 2.0 — The Optimizer was queried and both times it came back with essentially the same answer: the numbers say stay. Fifty-six pitches, second time through the order, FIP that projects confidence. The conventional instinct in a World Series game with runners on and the lead still manageable is to get the phone moving. Most human managers — certainly most October managers — would have at least warmed somebody up. The Optimizer didn’t flinch. Wrobleski got out of the jam, and by the time he exited after seven innings of three-hit ball, the decision looked prophetic. It wasn’t luck. It was the AI refusing to let narrative override data, which is exactly what these systems are supposed to do.

Now flip to the other dugout, because Cam Schlittler’s night is a masterclass in what happens when an AI knows what’s right but struggles to act on it fast enough. The decision log shows the Yankees’ system — The Skipper — actually flagged the situation correctly: nine hits, eight batters reached, stuff clearly not fooling anyone. But the confidence reading on the pull decision still sat at 78 percent, and Schlittler was allowed to face a fourth inning with runners on second and third and nobody out while the Dodgers were already warming up their bats for a crooked number. The AI cited Schlittler’s 1.87 ERA as justification for the leash, and I understand the logic — track record matters — but ERA is descriptive, not prescriptive. What was happening in that game, in that inning, was a pitcher whose stuff had been neutralized. A veteran pitching coach would have had that conversation with the starter in the dugout after the third inning. The Skipper was reading the résumé when it should have been watching the radar gun.

What makes the Fernando Cruz situation even more confusing is the follow-up. The Skipper burned Cruz in a cleanup role, watched him give up four hits and three runs of his own, and then the decision log shows two separate evaluations in the fifth inning where it talked itself out of pulling him — both times noting low leverage and manageable pitch counts. Low leverage matters, but it matters after you’ve already surrendered the lead. The Yankees were down five runs and still deploying their bullpen as if protecting a save situation. That’s misapplied game-state logic, and it’s the kind of error a human manager with feel for a blowout’s momentum wouldn’t have made.

The one genuinely defensible losing decision came late: The Skipper held Cruz in a two-out, runner-on-second spot in the fifth, reasoning correctly that the leverage was minimal. That call isn’t wrong in a vacuum. It’s just that the vacancy was already there — six runs already scored, series already tipping — and no individual decision in that half-inning could have changed the outcome.

The Dodgers close this series out at home. The Optimizer has now shown in consecutive games that it will trust starting pitching through elevated leverage and be right about it. The Skipper, down 3-2, will need something different in Game 7 — probably a willingness to make the uncomfortable call before the data reaches certainty. Waiting for 78 percent confidence in a World Series elimination game isn’t caution. It’s hesitation wearing a spreadsheet.