Dodgers make return to Yankee Stadium one to forget in 6-4 loss

Maybe they should have waited 132 years.

The Dodgers returned to New York to play the Yankees for the first time since 1981 on Wednesday, and it’s safe to say it was hardly worth the wait.

Neither playing their first regular-season game at Yankee Stadium nor the return of ex-Yankee Don Mattingly as manager could keep the Dodgers from losing to the Yankees, 6-4, in the opener of a day-night doubleheader.

The Dodgers committed four errors, two coming rather remarkably on one play by Ronald Belisario that led to what would prove to be the winning runs.

The Dodgers trailed most of the afternoon, ex-Dodger Hiroki Kuroda outpitching Hyun-Jin Ryu enough to have the Yankees leading 3-2 entering the bottom of the seventh.

After J.P. Howell gave up a pair of one-out singles in the seventh, Mattingly called on Belisario, who has been struggling for weeks.

Belisario actually should have gotten out of the inning when he induced Vernon Wells to hit a short pop-up in front of the mound.

Only Belisario inexplicably dropped it for an error. Then it rolled between his legs. When he finally picked it up, for some reason he elected to throw to second. He missed by about five feet, the ball sailing into center as two runs scored.

Belisario, now appearing completely unnerved, then hit Thomas Neal with a pitch. Mattingly came and got him, but Paco Rodriguez gave up a final run-scoring single to Ichiro Suzuki -- who previously had homered -- to give New York a 6-2 lead.

Which kind of became important when Hanley Ramirez hit a two-run homer in the eighth.

Ryu (6-3) went six innings for the Dodgers, allowing three runs on five hits and a pair of walks with four strikeouts. Kuroda lasted 6 2/3 innings and was charged with two runs on eight hits and a walk with a pair of strikeouts.

Skip Schumaker, playing second base, committed the other two errors.

Mariano Rivera, for old times’ sake, pitched a scoreless ninth to earn his 25th save.

Yasiel Puig went 2-for-5 for the Dodgers.