Yankees keep World Series alive as bats awaken for Game 4 win over Dodgers | World Series

The New York Yankees aren’t ready to call it a summer just yet.

Backs to the wall after dropping the first three games of the World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers, the American League champions overcame Freddie Freeman’s latest October heroics and some unruly fan misbehavior to stave off elimination with an 11-4 win in Game 4 of the World Series on Tuesday night.

The Yankees still trail three games to one in the best-of-seven Fall Classic but their flickering championship hopes will live at least one more day. Game 5 is Wednesday night in the Bronx.

The Dodgers appeared bound for the first World Series sweep in 12 years when Freeman drove a two-run shot into the right-field stands in the first inning, making him the first major league player to homer in the first four games of a Fall Classic. The 35-year-old first baseman and 2020 NL MVP set another record by homering in a sixth straight World Series game dating back to Atlanta’s last two games against Houston in 2021.

But from there a dormant New York lineup that had been held to four runs and nine hits in Games 2 and 3 burst to life. After scratching one back on Alex Verdugo’s RBI grounder in the second inning, the Yankees loaded the bases against Daniel Hudson in the third and kicked down the door when shortstop Anthony Volpe launched a down-and-in first-pitch slider 390 feet into the left-field bleachers. It was a dream come true for the 23-year-old shortstop, who grew up a Yankee fan on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and attended their most recent World Series parade in 2009.

“I think I pretty much blacked out as soon as I saw it go over the fence,” said Volpe, who was the Yankees’ first-round draft pick in 2019. “I think everyone had confidence in everyone in the lineup that someone was going to get the big hit. We’ve been having such good at-bats and putting such good swings on the ball, that we just felt like it was only a matter of time.”

Leading for the first time in the series since Game 1 on Friday night, when Freeman hit the first walk-off grand slam in World Series history, the Yankees held on as Tim Hill, Clay Holmes, Mark Leiter Jr, Luke Weaver and Tim Mayza combined for five innings of one-hit relief with seven strikeouts. Austin Wells and Gleyber Torres added home runs for the hosts, who put the contest out of reach with a five-run eighth.

“They didn’t make it this far by accident,” Dodgers right fielder Mookie Betts said. “They’re a really good ballclub and they showed it tonight.”

It didn’t take long for Tuesday’s contest to drift into the unexpected. Shortly after Freeman’s home run in the first, two spectators were ejected from the stadium after one pried the ball from the glove of Betts.

Betts leaped at the wall in foul territory and initially caught Torres’ pop up in the bottom of the first, but a fan in the first row wearing a gray New York road jersey grabbed the Los Angeles star’s glove with both hands and pulled the ball out. Torres was immediately called out on fan interference.

History suggests the Dodgers will be OK. None of the 24 previous teams to have faced a 3-0 deficit in the World Series have managed to extend it to a Game 6 much less come back to win. With Tuesday’s win, the Yankees became only the first team in 54 years, and fourth overall, to avoid a sweep and force a fifth game, joining the 1970 Cincinnati Reds, the 1937 New York Giants and the 1910 Chicago Cubs.

The only team in major league history to overturn a 3-0 deficit at any stage in the playoffs were the Boston Red Sox against the Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series, a comeback that was sparked by Dodgers manager Dave Roberts’ stolen base in Game 4.