Plaschke: No big deal. Dodgers punt Game 4, but they’re still in control against the Yankees
NEW YORK — The New York Yankees have awakened.
A little late.
The Yankees mauled and mashed and manhandled the Dodgers in Game 4 of the World Series on Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium, staving off a sweep with an 11-4 victory.
Not much to see here.
Dodgers can’t complete sweep as Yankees get off the mat in Game 4 to keep season alive
NEW YORK — The Dodgers’ lack of pitching hasn’t hurt them often this postseason. But in the third inning Tuesday night, manager Dave Roberts stood in the dugout without many appealing options.
Not only were the Dodgers running their fourth bullpen game of the playoffs in Game 4 of the World Series, trying to sweep the New York Yankees to seal the franchise’s eighth championship, but they were doing it with more limitations than normal.
Winning the first three games of this Series forced Roberts to ride his bullpen heavily, especially his two highest-leverage relievers, Michael Kopech and Blake Treinen. Because of that, the team had to find other ways to piece together the early outs in Tuesday’s game. And when trouble arose in the third inning, Roberts felt he had no choice but to ride it out.
With the Dodgers protecting an early one-run lead, right-hander Daniel Hudson ran into a bases-loaded jam. And with only rookie Landon Knack warming in the bullpen, Hudson stayed on the mound and threw a first-pitch slider to Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe.
Dodgers lose 11-4 to Yankees in Game 4 of World Series
⚾ Yankees 11, Dodgers 4 — FINAL
Top of the ninth: Facing Yankees reliever Tim Mayza, Kiké Hernández and Chris Taylor grounded out. Will Smith lined out to center field to end the game.
Daniel Hudson gave up a grand slam and Brent Honeywell gave up a three-run homer in the Dodgers’ loss.
The Dodgers lead the best-of-seven series 3-1, with Game 5 on Wednesday at 5:08 p.m. PDT.
Yankees take commanding lead over Dodgers in eighth inning
⚾ Yankees 11, Dodgers 4 — End of the eighth inning
Top of the eighth: Yankees reliever Luke Weaver struck out Freddie Freeman, Teoscar Hernández and Max Muncy.
Bottom of the eighth: Brent Honeywell took over on the mound for the Dodgers. Anthony Rizzo grounded out. Anthony Volpe then doubled on a liner to left field, sliding into second and knocking the ball out of Gavin Lux’s glove with some very aggressive baserunning.
Knack walked Austin Wells. After a double steal by Volpe and Wells to take third and second, Alex Verdugo drove in Volpe on a fielder’s choice grounder to second base. Lux tried to throw out Volpe at home plate, but his throw was a bit off the mark, and Volpe’s speed allowed him to slide past catcher Will Smith.
Gleyber Torres followed with a three-run home run to right-center field to make it 10-4 Yankees.
Juan Soto followed the home run with a double into the right-field corner. Aaron Judge then drove in Soto on a single to left field to give the Yankees an 11-4 lead.
Jazz Chisholm flied out and Giancarlo Stanton popped out to end the frame.
Dodgers trail Yankees 6-4 heading into the eighth inning
⚾ Yankees 6, Dodgers 4 — End of the seventh
Top of the seventh: Facing Yankees reliever Mark Leiter Jr., Will Smith struck out. Tommy Edman drew a walk, then stole second base. With his final pitch of the night, Leiter struck out Shohei Ohtani. Reliever Luke Weaver struck out Mookie Betts to cap the frame.
Bottom of the seventh: Landon Knack gets Aaron Judge to fly out to center field. Jazz Chisholm flied out to left field and Giancarlo Stanton lined out to left field.
Austin Wells hits solo home run in the sixth for Yankees
⚾ Yankees 6, Dodgers 4 — End of the sixth
Top of the sixth: Clay Holmes struck out Max Muncy on three pitches. Kiké Hernández also struck out before Gavin Lux grounded out to second base.
Bottom of the sixth: Austin Wells led with a home run to right field off Dodgers pitcher Landon Knack to make it 6-4 Yankees.
Alex Verdugo and Gleyber Torres each flied out before Knack struck out Juan Soto.
Will Smith hits a home run as Dodgers cut into Yankees’ lead
⚾ Yankees 5, Dodgers 4 — End of the fifth inning
Top of the fifth: Will Smith leads with a home run to right-center field off Luis Gil to cut into the Yankees’ lead.
Gil then walked Tommy Edman, ending his night on the mound. Shohei Ohtani hit a first-pitch single to center off Yankees reliever Tim Hill. Ohtani continued to pull down on the collar of his jersey in an effort to limit the effects of his sore left shoulder.
Mookie Betts grounded into a force out a second base, putting runners on the corners.
Freddie Freeman drove in Tommy Edman on a grounder that forced out Mookie Betts at second, making it 5-4 Yankees. Freeman was initially ruled out at first, but a video review initiated by the Dodgers reversed the out-at-first call.
Facing Yankees reliever Clay Holmes, Teoscar Hernández flied out to left.
Bottom of the fifth: Aaron Judged reached first on a fielding error by Dodgers shortstop Tommy Edman, who let a grounder pop out of his glove.
Landon Knack walked Jazz Chisholm, then struck out Giancarlo Stanton. Anthony Rizzo flied out to center field and Anthony Volpe flied out to center field, leaving two stranded.
Dodgers trail 5-2 heading into the fifth inning
⚾ Yankees 5, Dodgers 2 — End of the fourth inning
Top of the fourth: Teoscar Hernández popped out in foul territory near first base. Luis Gil walked Max Muncy before Kiké Hernández grounded into a force out at second base. Gavin Lux grounded out to cap the frame.
Bottom of the fourth: Landon Knack took over on the mound for the Dodgers and gave up a lead-off single to Alex Verdugo. Gleyber Torres then hit into a 4-6-3 double play. Knack then got Juan Soto to ground out to second.
Anthony Volpe grand slam gives Yankees 5-2 lead in the third
⚾ Yankees 5, Dodgers 2 — End of the third inning
Top of the third: Shohei Ohtani flied out, Mookie Betts grounded out and Freddie Freeman flied out.
Bottom of the third: Daniel Hudson took over on the mound for the Dodgers, and he struck out Juan Soto. Hudson then hit Aaron Judge on the left hand with a pitch, but the Yankees star managed to stay in the game and took first base.
Jazz Chisholm followed with a single off the wall in right field, putting runners on the corners. Hudson nearly hit Giancarlo Stanton with a pitch before walking him to load the bases with one out, prompting a mound visit from pitching coach Mark Prior. Anthony Rizzo popped out to Tommy Edman at short.
Anthony Volpe then hit a grand slam off Hudson to left field, giving the Yankees a 5-2 lead and rocking life into Yankee Stadium.
Austin Wells flied out to left field to end the inning.
Yankees cut into the Dodgers’ lead in the second inning
⚾ Dodgers 2, Yankees 1 — End of the second inning
Top of the second: Gavin Lux led with a double down the right-field line. After Will Smith popped out, Tommy Edman lined into a 3-6 double play that snagged Lux before he could tag up at second base.
Bottom of the second: Dodgers opener Ben Casparius struck out Anthony Rizzo before walking Anthony Volpe. After Volpe stole second base, Austin Wells doubled off the wall in deep center field. But Volpe didn’t score, with Yankees third base coach Luis Rojas thinking Kiké Hernández could possibly catch the ball and signaling to Volpe to hold up. As a result, Volpe only advanced to third.
Alex Verdugo then drove in Volpe on the next at-bat on a ground out to the first-base side to make it 2-1 Dodgers. Gleyber Torees then flied out to right field to strand Wells at third.
Freddie Freeman makes history with home run in first inning
⚾ Dodgers 2, Yankees 0 — End of the first inning
Top of the first: Facing right-handed Yankees starter Luis Gil, Shohei Ohtani popped out behind second base. Mookie Betts then doubled down the line into the right-field corner.
Freddie Freeman hit a two-run home run to right field, breaking the record for most consecutive World Series games (six) with a home run. Freeman broke George Springer’s World Series mark of five that he set with the Houston Astros in 2017 and 2019. Freeman also broke the Dodgers’ franchise record for most RBIs in a World Series with nine.
Teoscar Hernández singled up the middle before Luis Gil struck out Max Muncy. Kiké Hernández popped out to end the frame.
Bottom of the first: Dodgers right fielder Mookie Betts reached over the wall to catch a foul ball off the bat of lead-off hitter Gleyber Torres before it was ripped out of his glove in what might have been the most blatant display of fan interference ever committed in the World Series. Right-field umpire Mark Carlson confirmed the fan interfered and Torres was ruled out. The two fans involved were later ejected from the stadium.
Dodgers pitcher Ben Casparius then walked Juan Soto and Aaron Judge. Jazz Chisholm and Giancarlo Stanton each grounded out to get Casparius out of the jam.
Shaikin: This Dodger’s girlfriend is ‘the Michael Jordan of field hockey.’ He’s just Ben.
NEW YORK — Fans crowded into Dodger Stadium for Friday’s World Series opener, among them the wives and girlfriends of the players on the home team. One of the girlfriends was missing, though: She had a big game, too.
Ben Casparius was nothing but supportive.
“She’s in the midst of their season,” he said. “They’re gearing up for the playoffs, too.”
Casparius, 25, the Dodgers’ rookie reliever, is dating Erin Matson, the field hockey coach at the University of North Carolina. The two met as students at North Carolina and, the way Matson tells the story, they finally became a couple just as he was transferring to the University of Connecticut.
Shaikin: Teoscar Hernández doing his part to make sure he earns a World Series ring
NEW YORK — The Dodgers are on the verge of their second World Series championship in five years. They could be on the verge of their third title in eight years but (insert trash can banging sound here).
The 2017 Houston Astros will forever live in infamy. Just ask Clayton Kershaw.
You might say the Astros’ championship rings are tainted. The Dodgers’ left fielder owns one of them.
Teoscar Hernández played one game for the 2017 Astros. He got called up from the minor leagues one day, got hurt the same day, and later returned to the minors. Three months later, the Astros traded him for pitcher Francisco Liriano.
Plaschke: Get ready for a parade! Dodgers one win away from World Series greatness
NEW YORK — One more win.
One more win to erase the pain of endless collapses.
One more win to silence the frustration of countless criticisms.
One more win to earn their first full season championship in 36 years, their first title of any sort in four years, and the first chance in forever to ask the most wonderful of questions.
Are you ready for a parade?
Not over yet, Yankees say: ‘We’re very capable of winning four games in a row’
NEW YORK — The situation looks dire for the New York Yankees heading into Game 4 of the World Series on Tuesday night. They lost the first three games to the Dodgers, and history is not on their side.
All 23 teams that have taken a 3-0 lead in the World Series have won the title. The only team to climb out of a 3-0 hole in a best-of-seven series is the 2004 Boston Red Sox, who won four straight American League Championship Series games over the Yankees en route to winning the World Series.
But in looking for some kind of inspiration at the end of their season, Yankees first baseman Anthony Rizzo harkened back to the beginning of this season, which they opened with a four-game road sweep of the Houston Astros.
“We started this year winning four games in a row; we know we’re very capable of winning four games in a row,” Rizzo said before Game 4. “So hopefully we can end this year winning four games in a row. That’s what we have to do to be champions. The Dodgers will not lay down by any means. But we win tonight, we get to play tomorrow.”
Rizzo was also the first baseman on the 2016 Chicago Cubs team that came back from a 3-1 World Series deficit to beat Cleveland in seven games to end the franchise’s 108-year championship drought.
A 10-year-old Dodgers fan believed he was getting out of class early to get braces removed. Instead, he attended the World Series and caught Freddie Freeman’s walk-off grand slam.
“You’ve just got to win one, right?” Rizzo said. “The one you win is the hardest. For [the Cubs in 2016], Game 5, I would say, was the hardest. Just winning one sets it up.
“We’ve got Gerrit Cole lurking tomorrow if we can get there. We’ve got a pissed-off [Carlos] Rodón for Game 6 if we can get out there. And Game 7 is always a crap shoot. There’s a documentary out right now [on Amazon Prime] on Game 7, right? But that’s a long ways away.”
Gavin Lux doesn’t understand 2020 World Series title criticism
NEW YORK — It hasn’t been a rallying cry for the Dodgers this October, but it’s something that sticks in their craw a bit, this perception that their 2020 World Series title is somehow less legitimate because it came after a regular season that was shortened to 60 games because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Second baseman Gavin Lux was on the taxi squad and did not play in the 2020 postseason, which consisted of four rounds, the last three of which the Dodgers played in the “bubble” of the Texas Rangers’ home stadium in Arlington.
But he can sense among manager Dave Roberts and some teammates who played in the 2020 playoffs — players like Mookie Betts, Max Muncy, Kiké Hernández and Austin Barnes — a need to erase that perception by beating the New York Yankees in this World Series and winning a full-season title.
“Hopefully we can just get rid of the whole short-season thing, people not counting it, get that taste out of our mouth,” Lux said before Game 4 in Yankee Stadium on Tuesday night. “I think it kind of bugs everybody. We were all in the same situation [in 2020], we were all in the same boat doing the same thing, and we still won.
“I personally don’t think that’s the right narrative, but I think it kind of bugs everybody a bit that you don’t get the recognition you deserve. If anything, I think it was probably harder to win that year. You want the full-season [title] though, just to [throw] that whole narrative out the window.”
In Shohei Ohtani’s hometown, World Series celebrations in Dodger blue
OSHU, Japan — It was moments before Game 3 was set to begin, and the city where Shohei Ohtani was born breathed a collective sigh of relief.
“I almost cried when I saw the injury,” 50-year-old resident Ayako Oyama said, referring to a partial shoulder dislocation the Dodgers superstar had suffered on a base-stealing attempt two days earlier.
Despite fears that the designated hitter would be out for the rest of this series, he had bounced back, and Oyama, dressed in a blue Ohtani jersey, had come to the local auditorium where the city was holding a World Series watching party.
Freddie Freeman’s superhero effort silences Yankee Stadium and inspires the Dodgers
NEW YORK — Freddie Freeman had already done plenty to infuriate fans of the New York Yankees, the Dodgers first baseman crushing a dramatic walk-off grand slam in the 10th inning of the World Series opener and a solo homer in a Game 2 victory.
So it was hardly a surprise when Freeman stepped into the batter’s box in the first inning of Game 3 in Yankee Stadium Monday night that he was greeted with a very audible and vulgar chant from the Bleacher Creatures, the right-field fans known for their fierce loyalty to the Yankees and hostility toward opposing teams.
“F— you Freddie!” Clap-clap, clap-clap-clap. “F— you Freddie!”
Ben Casparius to open for Dodgers in Game 4 vs. Yankees
After the Dodgers’ Game 3 win in the World Series on Monday night, a reporter began to ask manager Dave Roberts about his personal history with 3-0 series deficits.
Roberts interjected before the question was finished.
“Don’t talk about that,” said Roberts, the base-stealing hero of the Boston Red Sox’s 2004 comeback against the New York Yankees in that year’s American League Championship Series — the only time in Major League Baseball history a three-game deficit has been erased in the playoffs.
“Wrong guy,” Roberts added with a sly grin. “Way too early.”
Indeed, even with the kind of advantage that has never been squandered in Fall Classic history, Roberts and the Dodgers enter Game 4 with their guard up.
One more win. Then they can bask in ultimate October glory.
“I just think that we have got to stay focused, stay urgent,” Roberts said. “I just don’t want to let these guys up for air.”
Ben Casparius, the Dodgers’ rookie reliever, is dating Erin Matson, the field hockey coach at the University of North Carolina who had a decorated career as a player.
Coming into Tuesday’s game, Yankees manager Aaron Boone wasn’t thinking about a potentially historic series reversal either.
Sure, Boone said, “hopefully we can go be this amazing story and shock the world.”
“But right now,” he added, “it’s about trying to get a lead, trying to grab a game, and force another one, and then on from there. But we’ve got to grab one first.”
To do that Tuesday night, the Yankees have to grapple with a bullpen game from the Dodgers — one that will be opened by rookie right-hander Ben Casparius in his first career MLB start.
A former fifth-round draft pick who made his MLB debut on the last day of August, Casparius had already become an unsung hero in the Dodgers postseason run, pitching 4⅓ scoreless innings over three outings entering Tuesday.
His biggest contribution came in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series against the New York Mets when, in another bullpen game in a potential series clincher, he got four key outs to preserve the Dodgers’ early-game lead. They went on to win.
Casparius will likely fill a similar role Tuesday, expected to provide some length (along with fellow rookie right-hander Landon Knack) before the team turns to the rest of its lockdown bullpen.
If it works like it did in the NLCS, it could make Casparius the starting pitcher on the night the team wins a World Series.
“He’s a good kid, good competitor,” Roberts said of the 25-year-old right-hander, who was making just his seventh MLB outing, including the postseason. “The guys have done a great job of embracing him, and making him feel expected. And I like the variance play, as far as those guys don’t know much about him.”
In the event of a potential Game 5, the Dodgers already know their pitching plan. Game 1 starter Jack Flaherty will return to the bump, hoping to replicate the 5 ⅓ strong innings he pitched in the Series opener.
It put Flaherty in an unusual position during a pregame news conference Tuesday, trying to focus on a potential Wednesday night start that — he and the Dodgers hope — won’t ultimately be necessary.
“I’m worried about our guys going out and taking care of business today, and my job is to get ready for tomorrow,” he said. “I’ve got to focus on what I’ve got to do to get ready for tomorrow and root these guys on tonight. I’ve got to keep my mindset right there.”
Really, that applied to the Dodgers as a whole.
They built a 3-0 World Series lead by focusing on one game at a time. They didn’t want that to change Tuesday, even with the promise of a title just one more win away.
“I like where we’re at,” Roberts said. “But … we’ve got to keep playing great baseball.”
Here is the Dodgers’ full lineup for Game 4:
Hernández: For Shohei Ohtani, playing Game 3 of World Series was ‘obvious thing to do’
NEW YORK — When Shohei Ohtani departed Dodger Stadium to undergo an examination on his partially dislocated shoulder on Saturday night, Miguel Rojas sent him a text message wishing him the best. In response, Ohtani sent Rojas a song.
The song was about Ohtani.
“A fan made a song for him,” Rojas recalled with a chuckle.
The veteran shortstop played the composition on the Dodgers bus, which was headed to Los Angeles International Airport.
Dodgers take commanding 3-0 World Series lead over Yankees behind Walker Buehler
NEW YORK — At the start of the fifth inning Monday night, the Yankee Stadium scoreboard implored a quiet crowd in the Bronx.
“EVERYBODY GET LOUD,” it instructed.
“EVERYBODY SCREAM,” it begged.
The subdued 49,368 in attendance hardly reacted.
As he’d done so many times before this time of year, Walker Buehler had already extinguished any belief.
Dodgers vs. Yankees: How to watch and betting odds for Game 4
The Dodgers continue the postseason Tuesday when they face the New York Yankees in Game 4 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium. The game is scheduled to start at 5:08 p.m. PDT and will air on Fox and Fox Deportes. Radio broadcasts of the game will be on 570 AM and 1020 AM (Español) in the Los Angeles area.
The Dodgers lead the best-of-seven series 3-0. If they win Tuesday, they’ll capture the eighth World Series title in franchise history.
Here are the latest betting odds for Game 4 of the World Series:
Here’s the TV schedule for the remaining games series if necessary (all times Pacific):
- Game 5: Wednesday, 5:08 p.m. at New York | Fox, Fox Deportes
- Game 6: Friday, Nov. 1, 5:08 p.m. at Dodger Stadium | Fox, Fox Deportes
- Game 7: Saturday, Nov. 2, 5:08 p.m. at Dodger Stadium | Fox, Fox Deportes