For nine innings Sunday afternoon, the Yankees saw the kind of at-bats they have been hoping to put together more regularly of late.

The problem was that they were only happening when the Dodgers were in the batter’s box.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto dominated a feeble Yankees lineup in a complete game while the Dodgers made Cam Schlittler labor, knocking him out of the game by the fifth inning before the wheels fully came off in an 8-2 loss in the first game of a doubleheader in The Bronx.

The Yankees could barely touch Yamamoto, their only real damage against him coming on Trent Grisham’s home run to lead off the fourth inning.

That represented their first of only four hits against the Dodgers ace, who needed just 102 pitches to go the distance.

Shohei Ohtani scores a run against the Yankees during Game 1 of a doubleheader on July 19, 2026. JASON SZENES FOR THE NEW YORK POST

“Obviously we got to be able to do more — we’ve been saying that a lot here the last few weeks,” manager Aaron Boone said. “We got to do a better job of having those heavy at-bats as a group. That’s where we’ve struggled here these last few weeks.”

After winning four straight games to close out the first half, the Yankees (54-44) have opened the second half looking more like the team that went through a 4-14 rut in late June and early July.

Most notably, that includes the offense reverting to a rough watch, lacking much in the way of punch or depth that not even a healthy Aaron Judge would fully fix.

“I don’t know if [feeling] weight’s the right word, I think just a little pissed off,” Ryan McMahon said. “We know we got the guys to get this thing going, so it’s just about doing it.”

The Dodgers (63-36), meanwhile, consistently put up tough at-bats against Schlittler.

Typically fairly efficient, Schlittler threw 98 pitches across 4 ¹/₃ innings while giving up three runs.

He struck out eight and did not walk a batter, but the Dodgers worked plenty of long at-bats — fueled by fouling off 27 pitches — to drive his pitch count up and get to the Yankees bullpen early in the doubleheader.

It was still just a 3-1 game entering the eighth inning, when the Dodgers broke it open against Jake Bird (who was optioned to Triple-A after the game) and Camilo Doval, thanks in part to the Yankees losing their second ball in the sun of the day.

Yankees starter Cam Schlittler is pulled during the fifth inning on July 19, 2026. JASON SZENES FOR THE NEW YORK POST

Both came off the bat of Max Muncy, this one a foul pop up that fell near McMahon, who did not know where the ball was.

Instead of being the second out of the inning, Muncy eventually drew a walk, the first of seven straight Dodgers to reach before the actual second out was recorded on a sacrifice fly that made it 8-1.

• CHECK OUT THE LATEST MLB STANDINGS AND YANKEES STATS

If the Yankees had been able to muster more than just Grisham’s home run against Yamamoto to that point, Boone likely would have been using his better relievers in the late innings.

Instead, it was just another abysmal performance from a lineup that has largely been scuffling for nearly a month outside of Ben Rice and Grisham — especially against opposing starters.

In 19 games since June 25, the Yankees have scored just 30 runs (28 earned) in 106 innings against starting pitchers — good for a 2.38 ERA — while hitting just .158.

Their work against an awful Nationals bullpen in the final series before the All-Star break has saved this stretch from being even more miserable.

Among the top concerns is that the tough, grind-it-out at-bats they want to be known for have gone mostly missing.

There have also been more general struggles from central pieces of the lineup, particularly Cody Bellinger, who went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts in Game 1.

Entering the nightcap, since hitting his last home run on June 17, he was batting just .172 with a .460 OPS over his last 25 games.

“Game’s tough,” McMahon said. “But this is our job and this is what we’re supposed to be really good at doing. So we got to find something, we got to get something going. I think one good kick in the right direction can get us firing.”