World Series: These Yankees aren't the 2004 Red Sox, so don't expect a comeback vs. the Dodgers
Jazz Chisholm Jr., left, and Aaron Judge of the Yankees look on after the eighth inning against the Dodgers in Game 3 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium on Monday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
History says the Yankees’ dream of a 28th World Series title died with Monday night’s 4-2 loss to the Dodgers in Game 3.
Now it’s up to Aaron Boone & Co. to prove otherwise.
Don’t bet on it. No team has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit in the Fall Classic, and as the Yankees know all too well, only one has dug itself out of such a hole to win a seven-game series of any kind: the 2004 Red Sox.
These Yankees aren’t those “Idiots.” And as far as inspiration goes, remember when they were down 3-0 to the Astros in the 2022 ALCS and someone had the bright idea of showing those 2004 Red Sox highlights to the clubhouse as a motivational reel? It ended with a Houston sweep anyway.
How can the Yankees stay alive this time? There’s not much evidence that they can even extend this series beyond Tuesday, as the Dodgers have shown themselves to be better in every facet of the game.
“All it takes is one — one swing, one at-bat, one play — everything changes for us,” said Aaron Judge, who went 0-for-3 with a walk and a strikeout Monday night. “It’s just a mindset you gotta have going into this, and it just takes one game.”
As long as Judge remains a non-factor, that’s going to be difficult. He’s 1-for-12 in this World Series with a single and seven strikeouts. He’s going so badly that the crowd actually got excited when he took a good swing but hit the ball off the end of the bat and lifted a soft fly ball to leftfield that traveled 317 feet.
The simple act of making contact counts as progress these days for the Yankees’ captain, who has struck out 20 times in 43 at-bats this postseason.
And so much for home-field advantage. After a 15-year wait to play a World Series game in the Bronx, there was a surprising lack of energy in the building, and Clarke Schmidt pulled the plug way too early by serving up a two-run homer by Freddie Freeman in the first inning.
Trailing 2-0 should’ve been nothing to the Yankees, but you already could feel the tension among the sellout crowd of 49,368, and the players themselves didn’t do much to reverse that vibe. Almost every time they’ve fallen behind the Dodgers in this series, no matter how small the margin, it’s felt like an impossible climb.
The Yankees were non-competitive against starter Walker Buehler and six relievers before Alex Verdugo smacked a two-out, two-strike, two-run homer in the ninth for the half-empty Stadium.
“It’s extremely tough,” Verdugo said. “They’re one win away, we’re four wins away. Obviously, you can do the math with that. It’s going to be tough. There’s no question about it. We’ve got an uphill fight, but it’s going to start with [Tuesday].”
Why should Tuesday’s Game 4 be any different? Maybe the Yankees will have better luck facing a bullpen game after being shut down by the starting trio of Buehler, Jack Flaherty and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but their at-bats suggest otherwise. The Yankees are 3-for-18 with runners in scoring position in this World Series. They had five hits and struck out 11 times on Monday, giving them 31 strikeouts for the series.
They’re lucky that half the Dodgers’ prized pitching staff is on the injured list and Shohei Ohtani can barely use his left shoulder, or this somehow could be even uglier. The Yankees have been outscored only 14-7 in the three games, but it feels more like a few touchdowns. And the quality of play looks miles apart.
“Obviously, we’re not where we want to be right now,” Anthony Rizzo said. “It stinks. It definitely stinks.”
That accurately sums up the Yankees on the brink of this potential sweep. In Game 1, Boone’s questionable bullpen usage doomed them in the 10th-inning loss. The next night, in Game 2, Carlos Rodon was ripped for three homers before the Yankees put together a bases-loaded rally in the ninth, with Judge primarily to blame for derailing it.
The Yankees showed signs of their desperation on Monday night when they had the fragile Giancarlo Stanton — who’s barely allowed a light jog during the regular season — try to score from second on Anthony Volpe’s two-out single in the fourth inning. Teoscar Hernandez made a perfect one-hop throw and Will Smith applied a textbook sweep tag to nail Stanton, who took a few anxious moments to climb back to his feet.
If the Yankees were capable of doing anything against the Dodgers’ pitching staff, Stanton would’ve stayed put, giving the bottom third of the order a shot. But with their chances so few and far between in this series, they have to take those risks. And like everything else they try to do, it doesn’t seem to work.
“We all know our backs are against the wall,” Judge said. “We gotta get it going our way. That’s what it comes down to. We’ve got a lot of veteran guys in here — been there, done that before — so we just have to remind each other to keep playing the game we’ve played all year long and got us into this position.”
News flash for Judge: The Yankees are now in a terrible position, one loss from winter vacation. There’s a reason no team has ever come back from an 0-3 deficit. And from what we’ve seen from the Yankees, don’t expect them to make history this week. Just add their name to the casualty list.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.