Yankees, miscues bury Dodgers, 6-4

Well, they could have won.

That’s the positive to take away from the Dodgers’ 6-4 loss to the New York Yankees in today’s doubleheader lidlifter. And if that positive sounds a little Little League, well, the shoe kinda fits.

Los Angeles actually scored four runs, and Hyun-Jin Ryu allowed three. But as you know by now, there’s going to be more to the story.

There was Andre Ethier’s line-drive 1-5 double play with runners on second and third and none out in the fourth inning. That would be the 2013 Dodger season in a nutshell, if that nutshell didn’t also need to account for someone ripping a tendon and a bullpen meltdown.

In the seventh inning, J.P. Howell and Ronald Belisario cooperated with the latter, which featured a double non-play – a bobble and a throwaway — that gave Los Angeles four errors on the day and helped the Yankees go from a 3-2 lead to 6-2.

Yasiel Puig and Hanley Ramirez did their best to help the Dodgers overcome their foibles. Puig was a very loud 2 for 5. He hit a grounder up the middle in the first inning for a single but was caught trying to stretch it into a double — a boneheaded running play except for the fact that he almost made it. In the sixth inning, he hit a thunderbolt up the middle that brought Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano to the ground before the out was completed at first.

And in the eighth, Puig legged a double and then, in a rare feat, actually scored on someone else’s RBI. Ramirez’s fourth straight hit was a home run to left field that would have been quite the thrill if the previous inning hadn’t put the Dodgers down by four.

Back-to-back walks by Ethier and Juan Uribe put the tying runs on base with one out, but Skip Schumaker (who, mind you, had two errors in the game) popped out, and A.J. Ellis grounded out.

The two walks did help guarantee that Puig would bat in the ninth inning for the Dodgers … against Mariano Rivera. That happened with the bases empty and two out, and after taking two balls and swinging at two strikes, Puig froze on a called strike three down the middle from Rivera to end the game.

Puig remains an astonishing 25 for 53 this season.

Hiroki Kuroda went 6 2/3 innings for the Yankees, allowing two runs on eight hits and a walk while striking out two.

Dodgers at Yankees, 4:05 p.m.