by Moving the 2024 World Series to Yankee Stadium for Game 3 hasn’t slowed down the Los Angeles Dodgers at all.
Freddie Freeman started Los Angeles with a home run for a third straight game, and Walker Buehler and the Dodgers bullpen combined to calm down the New York Yankees offense again.
How did the Dodgers push the Yankees to the brink of elimination, and is there still hope for the home team in Game 4? We’ve covered everything from in-game updates and analysis to takeaways after the final pitch to what’s next for each team.
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Takeaways
Los Angeles Dodgers 4, New York Yankees 2
The Dodgers: The Yankees were supposed to have the starting pitcher advantage in this series. The Dodgers completely obliterated him. Walker Buehler pitched five scoreless innings in Game 3 Monday night – after Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed just one run in 6⅓ innings in Game 2 and Jack Flaherty gave up two runs in 5⅓ innings in first match. The three combined for a 1.62 ERA, the lowest among a team’s top three starters in the World Series since Cleveland in 2016.
Of the three, Buehler was probably the most uncertain. He returned from a second Tommy John surgery midway through the year, struggled with a 5.38 ERA in 16 regular-season starts and seemed to have lost his crushing fastball.
But he found an effective curveball against the New York Mets in the National League Championship Series and finally got his lively fastball back Monday night. The Dodgers are now one win away from their first championship in four years and their first full-season title since 1988. At its most critical, starting pitching went from the Dodgers’ biggest uncertainty to one of their greatest strengths. And their biggest concern, the overall health of first baseman and No. 3 hitter Freddie Freeman, no longer appears to be a concern at all. – Alden Gonzalez
Yankees: The Yankees are facing a 3-0 series deficit because their offense, led by their presumed American League MVP, is gone. On Monday, New York produced four hits, five walks and boos from the home crowd. Giancarlo Stanton went 2-for-4; the rest of the team finished 3 for 27. Aaron Judge went 0 for 3 with a strikeout and a walk, bringing his series total to 1 for 12 with seven strikeouts. Stanton’s fourth-inning double Monday was New York’s only extra-base hit. The Yankees went 1 for 4 with runners in scoring position and left eight runners on base. Their exchanges ended with a questionable send-off (Stanton was thrown out at home in the fourth inning) and a questionable strike call (Gleyber Torres taking a pitch above the strike zone with two runners on base in the seventh inning) . This much is certain: the Yankees, who managed to score seven runs in this series, are still one quiet night away from being swept. -Jorge Castillo
The big question of Game 4: Is this really going to be a sweep? Although bettors favored the Dodgers in this series, it was by a slight margin, and evaluators saw it as close to a coin toss. After three games, the Dodgers have shut down the Yankees hitters so completely that crowning Los Angeles seems inevitable.
Entering this series, MLB teams have taken a 3-0 lead 40 times. Thirty-one of them ended in raids. The Yankees can only hope that Luis Gil shows up and pitches better than Carlos Rodón and Clarke Schmidt in Games 2 and 3. Even then, considering how New York’s offense has performed this series , the prospect of Los Angeles going with an all-bullpen. Tuesday’s match doesn’t seem so disadvantageous.
The only baseball team to come back from a 3-0 loss in a best-of-seven series was the 2004 Boston Red Sox against the Yankees. New York needs a miracle at this point. Given the way the Yankees play, it’s hard to imagine what that looks like. –Jeff Passan
