Neither team has named its starting lineup for Game 5, though we can make some guesses based on what happened the last time these pitchers matched up in Game 1. This will be updated later when lineups are official.
NEW YORK — Before a do-or-die Game 4 at Yankee Stadium, Jazz Chisholm thought about wearing Timberlands on the field for batting practice. They were gifted to the team by outfielder Alex Verdugo, who “just wanted to do something cool for the boys.”
For three games to start the World Series, a Yankees offense that had launched more homers and taken more free passes than any team in baseball looked like a shell of itself. At the time Freddie Freeman launched another go-ahead first-inning blast in Game 4, he had knocked in more runs during the series than the entire New York lineup.
The Yankees entered Tuesday night with a total of seven runs through three games and only four hits with runners in scoring position. They looked tight. Verdugo, whose ninth-inning homer the night before provided their only runs in Game 3, sought to loosen things up. Well, that, plus he “felt like Timberlands just feel like New York” and he “wanted to get the boys some steppin’ shoes.”
“Mine was more just give them that, give them something to lighten it up,” Verdugo said.
ADVERTISEMENT
Whether the gift helped at all, or the Yankees offense simply enjoyed seeing a Dodgers bullpen game featuring a parade of their lower-leverage arms, the group finally ignited in an 11-4 rout.
“The situation we were in, I think that we just kind of needed to say, ‘Screw it,’ and go after it and have fun because some guys may never come back to the World Series again,” catcher Austin Wells said. “So, enjoying the game, I think that allowed us to play a lot looser tonight.”
Anthony Volpe’s go-ahead grand slam, which finally gave Yankee Stadium a reason to erupt, didn’t hurt, either. Wells said he thought that hit allowed the rest of the lineup to take a deep breath.
It also forced Dodgers manager Dave Roberts to think long term. He essentially punted the rest of the way, the same way he did in Game 2 of the NLCS when the Mets jumped ahead early in a bullpen game, so as not to overwork the relievers he trusts the most or allow the opposition to see them in a game they were unlikely to take anyway. It worked then.
The danger of that decision on Tuesday is it helped a group of scuffling Yankees hitters to break out and gain confidence.
Wells, who was 4-for-43 to begin the postseason and was given the previous game off, followed three innings after Volpe’s blast with a home run. Then came a five-run barrage in the eighth, when Gleyber Torres put the game away with the Yankees’ third home run of the night.
A Yankees offense that had not scored more than three runs in a game during the series broke out with nine hits and six free passes against a medley of Dodgers relievers. The bottom of the lineup provided a spark, but eight of the nine players in the lineup reached base. Perhaps most encouragingly for the Yankees, Aaron Judge demonstrated some promising signs, reaching base four times and knocking in a run in his final at-bat of the game.
“Once he’s on base, I feel like everybody gets going,” Chisholm said.
The World Series had gone 11 straight years without a sweep. The Yankees awoke from their slumber to run that streak to 12. The 11-run fusillade was tied for the second-most ever by a club facing elimination in the World Series.
The offensive approach that got them to the World Series finally showed up to help them keep their season alive.
“Knowing that this was the last guaranteed day of baseball for the season, definitely didn’t want to take it for granted and wanted to enjoy the moment,” Wells said. “I think if you put too much pressure on it at this point, like, it’s just going to … you’re going to fail yourself, and you’re not going to enjoy the journey.”
That journey will now continue on Thursday, when the Yankees have to feel good about their chances of sending the series back to Los Angeles.
If they’re able to do that, they’ll make history in the process. The Yankees are the 25th team to face a 3-0 deficit in the World Series. Twenty-one of the previous 24 teams to face that margin were swept. The other three lost in Game 5.
But the other three didn’t have Gerrit Cole on the mound.
“Every time G goes out there, we feel we’re in a great spot,” Chisholm said. “He’s like the best pitcher in the world. You see him out there, you see confidence.”
Cole allowed just one run and only four baserunners in six innings to start the series. He departed with the lead in a game that ended with a walk-off grand slam off the bat of Freeman, who has made his mark in every game this series. Freeman followed those late-game heroics with a solo homer in Game 2, then quieted the Yankees’ crowd with a two-run shot that sapped the energy from the stadium in Game 3.
When Freeman did the exact same thing again in Game 4, setting a major-league record with a home run in his sixth straight World Series game, it looked like he might have delivered the dagger to the Yankees’ season.
This time, though, they answered back.
The 2004 Red Sox are the only MLB team to dig its way out of a 3-0 hole in a best-of-seven series, when it did so against the Yankees in the American League Championship Series.
But the Yankees, with three more games to play for their lives, aren’t thinking that far ahead. Anthony Rizzo, whose 2016 World Series champion Cubs emerged victorious from a 3-1 deficit in the World Series — where the Yankees find themselves now — knows the danger of that.
“It was all about just getting to Game 6,” Rizzo said. “We knew Game 5 was going to be really hard.”
If the offense that showed up Wednesday reveals itself again, especially with Cole on the mound, the Yankees have a real chance of extending the series. Even if they can’t wear Timberlands to batting practice.
“We’ve got to focus on, ‘Win another game,'” Judge said. “We’ll look up at the end of it and see what happens.”
Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on Twitter at @RowanKavner.
Anthony Volpe told Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz what was was like hit grand slam in the New York Yankees’ 11-4 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 4 of the World Series.
NEW YORK — The Yankees finally broke through for their first win of the World Series in front of a rocking Bronx crowd and, in doing so, reminded everyone that they’re not going down without a fight. Whether it was the pressure of competing in an elimination game and playing with urgency, or seeing multiple relief arms and capitalizing on the Dodgers‘ bullpen game, the Yankees’ 11-4 win on Tuesday night was just what they needed to get their confidence back in the Fall Classic.
They are, after all, the best team in the American League for a reason.
Here are our four biggest takeaways from Game 4 in the Bronx.
It was sweet, sweet redemption for Anthony Volpe. One inning after he didn’t score from second base on an Austin Wells double, the opportunity to atone for his mistake was his to take when the Yankees, trailing 2-1, loaded the bases for him in the third. The Yankees were finding ways to get on base, but they still needed that big hit, and it appeared unlikely that they would actually capitalize after Anthony Rizzo popped out with the bases juiced for the second out. But it was also pretty clear that Daniel Hudson, who was the second man out of the bullpen in the Dodgers’ bullpen game, didn’t have it.
Volpe pounced on the first pitch Hudson offered him, an 89 mph slider that nicked the bottom of the zone before the Yankees shortstop barreled it to left field. Fans couldn’t believe it as the ball kept sailing over left fielder Teoscar Hernández’s head and into the seats. Only when it safely landed beyond the left-field wall did an anxious and restless home crowd of 49,354 finally erupt for the first time in this World Series.
Volpe’s grand slam gave the Yankees a lead it wouldn’t relinquish. The first home run of his postseason career was just his second overall since Aug. 4. — Deesha Thosar
No, that wasn’t a replay. Freddie Freeman had no extra-base hits, just one run scored and one RBI in the first two rounds of the postseason. He was too hobbled from his ankle sprain to play in the Dodgers’ deciding Game 6 of the NLCS, and there were questions whether his valiant effort to be in the lineup — despite his obvious pain, and despite how much it seemed to be a galvanizing force for his teammates, who admired the daily efforts it took for him to get on the field — was doing more harm than good.
The Yankees haven’t seen that version of the All-Star first baseman. A week off transformed Freeman from a singles hitter into a slugging juggernaut. His teammates thought he had started to find his stroke again watching him take batting practice a couple of days before the start of the World Series, watching him line baseballs over shortstop the way he typically does when he’s swinging right.
The Yankees didn’t get that version of Freeman, either. Instead, they’ve seen the one who’s on a historic postseason home run pace. Freeman hit the first walk-off grand slam in World Series history in Game 1, added a solo shot in Game 2, quieted the opposing crowd at Yankee Stadium in the first inning of Game 3 with a two-run shot, then did so again in Game 4. In the process, Freeman — who also homered in the final two games of the Braves‘ 2021 title run — has set a major-league record by hitting a home run in six straight World Series games.
He has now homered in four straight games to start this World Series. At the time of his Game 4 blast, Freeman had knocked in more runs this series than the entire Yankees team. His 10 RBIs are the most by a Dodgers player in a World Series. This time, though, it wasn’t the dagger that it was in Game 3, as the Yankees’ lineup battled back. — Rowan Kavner
3. With a little help from Judge’s friends
It was hard to imagine the Yankees getting a single win in this World Series without one of two things happening: Either Aaron Judge wakes up, or the guys that he’s carried all year finally give him some of that support back. It was mostly the latter Tuesday, as the bottom of the Yankees order finally put together quality at-bats for the first time in this Series. Austin Wells, one of the Yankees’ best hitters in July and August and who played his way into the American League Rookie of the Year conversation, cranked a solo shot to right field in the sixth inning for a much-needed insurance run. That homer came after an excellent at-bat in the second inning, when he skied a double off the padding in center field.
No lead is safe with the Dodgers in the other dugout, as the Yankees learned the hard way in Game 1. That might explain New York’s five-run outburst in the eighth inning, with Volpe and Wells reaching safely again to set the table for a Gleyber Torres three-run home run. Amazingly, the Yankees scored their first 10 runs of this game without Juan Soto or Judge being prominently involved. — Thosar
4. Dodgers’ bullpen game goes south quickly
Tuesday was the fourth bullpen game of the postseason for the Dodgers. The first, in an elimination Game 4 in the NLDS, was a clinic, with eight different pitchers combining to hold the Padres scoreless in an 8-0 shutout that came in the midst of a record-tying 33 consecutive scoreless innings for the Dodgers’ pitching staff.
The last three haven’t gone so smoothly, including the first of the World Series on Tuesday in the Bronx. With four chances to win one game, manager Dave Roberts decided against deploying all of his best high-leverage pieces the way he needed to in that first do-or-die matchup in San Diego. It looked a little more like Game 2 of the NLCS, when, after the Mets tagged Landon Knack for five runs, the Dodgers essentially punted. Roberts didn’t want to tire his best arms out in a long series, and he didn’t want the Mets to get another look at those arms in a minus situation. The move ultimately paid off.
It was a similar situation Tuesday against the Yankees. While Roberts said everyone was available, it was clear he would need some length from rookies Ben Casparius and Knack and would decide who to use based on the game situation from there. “Every guy will be with a cost going forward,” Roberts said. Michael Kopech had pitched in each of the first three games. Blake Treinen, Anthony Banda, Alex Vesia and Brusdar Graterol had pitched in two apiece. None of them saw the field after Volpe’s grand slam off Daniel Hudson put the Yankees in the driver’s seat.
Roberts has pushed a lot of the right buttons so far this October, so we’ll see if saving his best guys for Game 5 and beyond was the right call again. — Rowan Kavner
Deesha Thosar is an MLB reporter for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.
Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on Twitter at @RowanKavner.
A fan at Yankee Stadium was ejected from Game 4 of the World Series after prying a foul ball out of the glove of Los Angeles Dodgers right fielder Mookie Betts on Tuesday night.
Betts leaped at the wall in foul territory and initially caught Gleyber Torres‘ pop up in the first inning, but a fan in the first row with a gray Yankees‘ road jersey grabbed Betts’ glove with both hands and pulled the ball out. Torres was immediately called out on fan interference.
It was the second time Torres had an at-bat impacted by fan interference this World Series. With two outs in the ninth inning of Game 1 at Dodger Stadium, Torres hit a fly ball to left field, and a fan reached over and caught the ball. Torres was awarded a double.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Dodgers, who are one win away from their second title in five years, held a 2-0 lead on Freddie Freeman’s two-run homer in the top of the first off Luis Gil.
Yankees fan pulls ball out of Mookie Betts’ glove in World Series Game 4 | MLB on FOX
Tom Rinaldi sat down with Los Angeles Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman to talk about the impact his father has made throughout his life and what a World Series victory over the New York Yankees would mean.
