2024-10-29 11:00:03
NEW YORK – They crammed in crowded 4 and D trains, packed the Bronx’s sports bars and streamed through the Yankee Stadium gates, ready to lend their voices to the comeback cause. But it took all of three batters for those pinstripe-clad fans to be quieted, all of three batters for the seemingly unstoppable Dodgers to assert themselves in one of the most intimidating road environments in sports.
Sparked by – stop us if you’ve heard this one – a Freddie Freeman home run and steered by an exceptional outing from Walker Buehler, the Dodgers’ 4-2 triumph over the Yankees in Game 3 on Monday night was their most convincing win yet in a World Series they are on the verge of sweeping.
How’d the Dodgers win this one? Well, they hit better, pitched better, ran the bases better and caught the ball better. Any questions?
Though they didn’t capitalize on opportunities to turn it into a blowout, the Dodgers were in control early and often and are now just a win away from their second World Series title in five seasons and their first in a full season since 1988. Game 4 will be back in Yankee Stadium on Tuesday night.
In all best-of-seven postseason series, teams taking a 3-0 lead have gone on to win the series 39 of 40 times (98%), including 31 sweeps. Just two teams down 3-0 have even forced a Game 7: The 2020 Astros, who lost to the Rays in the ALCS, and the 2004 Red Sox, who famously beat the Yankees in the ALCS.
Freeman has now homered in each of his last five World Series games, dating back to his time with the Braves in 2021.
“I guess when it’s all said and done I can look at that, but the most important thing is one more win. That’s all I care about right now,” Freeman said on the field after the game. “I don’t care about how it happens, I just want to get one more win.”
Another run came in the third, when NLCS MVP Tommy Edman drew a walk, advanced to second on an Ohtani groundout and then made a great read on Mookie Betts’ opposite-field single to right to motor home and make it 3-0. The Dodgers could have broken the game open that inning after they loaded the bases and compelled Aaron Boone to go to his bullpen by bringing in Mark Leiter Jr. with two outs. But Will Smith grounded out to end the threat.
The Dodgers stranded two more runners in the fourth, but they manufactured another insurance run in the sixth when Gavin Lux got hit by a pitch, swiped second and scored on an Enrique Hernández single.
Those Dodgers runs quieted the crowd, and Buehler silenced the Yankees’ bats.
Buehler has been a big-game pitcher many times in postseasons past, yet the 30-year-old right-hander has had an uncharacteristically difficult year in his first season back from Tommy John surgery. But in five scoreless innings in which he allowed just a pair of hits with two walks and five strikeouts, Buehler looked like his old self, with nice life on his fastball. He now has a 0.50 ERA in 18 career World Series innings.
“Walker Buehler’s been doing this his whole career,” Freeman said. “Big games, big moments, he steps up when you need him. Five strong, strong innings, and our bullpen came in and did a great job. This is what you’ve got to do, you’ve got to pitch in October, and we’ve been doing that.”
The only time the Yankees got a runner to second base against Buehler came when Giancarlo Stanton doubled in the fourth. But when Anthony Volpe singled to shallow left with two outs, Yankees third-base coach Luis Rojas aggressively sent Stanton home, and the imposing DH was cut down by a perfect throw from Teoscar Hernández.
That the Yankees sent Stanton there speaks to how desperate they’ve been to get something going. This was another ineffective evening for their captain Aaron Judge, another night when they struggled to get help from the bottom half of their lineup (when they had two aboard and two out with Anthony Banda on the mound for L.A. in the seventh, Gleyber Torres was called out looking for strike three), another night when their starter didn’t have it. Though Verdugo’s two-out, two-run homer in the ninth put a late jolt into the building, it was too late to spark a real rally.
To think, the Yankees were once one out from a 1-0 lead in this Series. Everything changed when Freeman connected with a Nestor Cortes fastball and limped his way into the history books.
Now, if the Yanks don’t respond and start doing their own impression of the 2004 Red Sox, the Dodgers are dangerously close to turning this blockbuster battle of iconic franchises and signature stars into a matchup of minimum length.
