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In Game 1 of the World Series, the Los Angeles Dodgers completed a comeback against the Yankees with a dramatic, go-ahead grand slam.
On Tuesday night in the Bronx, the Yankees returned the favor.
Anthony Volpe’s third-inning grand slam powered an 11-4 victory over the Dodgers in Game 4, preventing a World Series sweep and keeping the Yankees’ season alive for at least one more night.
Volpe’s two-out blast on a first-pitch slider from reliever Daniel Hudson turned the Yankees’ one-run deficit into a 5-2 lead, earning an eruption from a sellout crowd of 49,354 that had been begging for a reason to explode.
“I pretty much blacked out as soon as I saw it go over the fence,” Volpe said. “We just want to keep putting pressure on them, and I think everyone had confidence in everyone in the lineup that someone was going to get the big hit.”
The slam served as a full-circle moment for the 23-year-old Volpe, who grew up a Yankees fan on the Upper East Side and in Northern New Jersey. He attended the Yankees’ 2009 championship parade and went to multiple playoff games in the Bronx before the team made him a first-round draft pick in 2019.
It was the first playoff home run for Volpe, a second-year shortstop competing in his first MLB postseason. He hit it with former Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, now a Fox analyst, in the building.
That type of game-shifting hit largely eluded the Yankees in their losses in Games 1 through 3, which put them in a 3-0 hole — and on the brink of elimination — in the best-of-seven series.
“This team right here is just special, but at the end of the day, we’re not trying to come back from 3-0,” said Juan Soto, who went 1-for-4 with a walk and a run. “We’re trying to win every day. That’s the mindset. We’re trying to go 1-0 every day.”
The Yankees trailed, 2-0, after rookie starter Luis Gil surrendered a two-run home run in the first inning to Freddie Freeman, the newest Yankee killer.
Despite badly spraining his right ankle just over a month ago, Freeman has homered in every game of this World Series, including with his walk-off grand slam in the 10th inning of Game 1 at Dodger Stadium.
The 26-year-old Gil ended up allowing four runs over four-plus innings, striking out one, but he held the loaded Los Angeles lineup scoreless in the second, third and fourth innings, allowing the Yankees to get back into the game.
The Dodgers, meanwhile, deployed a bullpen game, the result of an injury-ravaged rotation that has featured only three starting pitchers all postseason.
The Yankees managed one run against the Dodgers’ first reliever, rookie Ben Casparius, on an RBI groundout by Alex Verdugo in the bottom of the second.
All four runs that scored on Volpe’s slam in the next inning were charged to Hudson.
In the bottom of the sixth, with the lead cut to one run, Austin Wells slugged a solo shot against Landon Knack to put the Yankees up, 6-4.
And the Yankees piled on against Brent Honeywell with a five-run eighth inning, during which Gleyber Torres struck a three-run home run and Aaron Judge added a run-scoring single for his first RBI of the World Series.
The Yankees’ offensive output in Game 4 exceeded the seven runs they totaled in Games 1 through 3.
“We’re just focused on one game,” Judge said. “Just because our backs are against the wall really hasn’t changed that mindset, especially with this group, who’s been through a lot. We’re just gonna keep doing that.”
Tuesday night’s superior bullpen belonged to the Yankees, who got five scoreless innings from relievers Tim Hill, Clay Holmes, Mark Leiter Jr., Luke Weaver and Tim Mayza.
The Yankees still face an unprecedented uphill climb to come all the way back from a 3-0 series deficit, which no team in MLB history has done in the World Series. The only instance of a 3-0 comeback in any best-of-seven series remains the 2004 ALCS, when the Red Sox achieved the improbable feat against the Yankees.
But Tuesday’s win brought the Yankees one step closer.
“We just showed up today ready to play, and trying to get one and trying to get it to tomorrow,” manager Aaron Boone said. “You don’t want to get ahead of yourself and start thinking about the series.”
The Yankees aim to extend the series again on Wednesday night in the Bronx, where ace Gerrit Cole is set to start Game 5 after limiting Los Angeles to one run over six-plus innings in Game 1. Jack Flaherty, who held the Yankees to two runs in 5.1 innings in Game 1, is scheduled to start Wednesday for the Dodgers.
“There’s a lot of baseball left to be played,” Cole said a few hours before Game 4, “and anything can happen.”
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