World Series: Yankees ready to feed off fans' energy in Game 3 vs. Dodgers

Anthony Rizzo wasn’t making a plea or a demand when it comes to fans bringing the noise and electricity Monday night at Yankee Stadium.

Loud sellout crowds have been a part of each of the four home games the Yankees have played this postseason.

It’s just that the expected cacophonous throng packing the Stadium for its first World Series game since 2009 is something the Yankees simply need.

“More than ever right now, for sure,” Rizzo said late Saturday night in the visitor’s clubhouse after the Yankees fell in an 0-2 hole with a 4-2 loss to the Dodgers in Game 2 of the World Series. “They back us, they pump us up, they put pressure on other teams. The Bronx is a special place when that stadium’s rocking. We feel it and we get rolling. So we’re going to need every ounce of their energy coming into Monday. Take care of business and keep going.”

The Yankees’ task is a tall one, but not an impossible one.

Though the team taking a 2-0 lead in the World Series has ended up winning it 45 of 56 times, the Yankees need only look to their own history for inspiration.

Joe Torre’s first team lost the first two games of the 1996 Series at home to Atlanta before winning four straight for the franchise’s first title since 1978 (and first of four in a five-year stretch). They’re the last team to rally from an 0-2 hole in a World Series.

And, as two prominent Yankees can attest, strange things happen at this time of year.

Rizzo was a star on the 2016 Cubs team that won the World Series for the first time since 1908. But to get there, they had to come back from a 3-1 deficit against Cleveland — itself now holding the longest active drought without a World Series title (since 1948) — and win Game 6 and then an all-time-great Game 7 on the road.

“The mindset was win one game and everything will take care of itself,” Rizzo said.

Though not in as historically significant a World Series as Rizzo’s was, Juan Soto’s in 2019 also was historic. Soto, then 20 years old and spurred to a terrific Series overall by his homer-double performance off Astros righthander Gerrit Cole in Game 1, helped lead the Nationals to their first championship.

The history?

For the first time in a World Series, the visiting team won every game.

“I was just talking to Juan,” Rizzo said of a recent postgame conversation. “And he’s been a part of an insane, roller-coaster World Series and so have I.”

To put this one on an upswing, from the Yankees’ perspective, it needs to start in Game 3. The Yankees will give the ball to Clarke Schmidt, who according to many teammates might be the most self-confident player in the clubhouse. Walker Buehler will start for the Dodgers.

“I treat every game at this point, I think we all do, as a must-win,” Schmidt said. “Down 2-0, whatever the record is, we’re treating each game like we have to win every game we go out there. So mentality-wise, nothing’s changing here.”

This will be Schmidt’s first postseason start at Yankee Stadium after making his first two career playoff starts on the road — in Game 3 of the ALDS against the Royals and Game 3 of the ALCS against the Guardians.

“You can use it to give yourself a big boost,” Schmidt said of the Stadium crowd. “They’re in it pitch-to-pitch with us at home and they’re rooting us on. You definitely feel that when you’re out there. It’ll add a bit of adrenaline.”

Perhaps no player needs that more than Aaron Judge. He has had the worst postseason of his career, and the postseason already was a time when he hadn’t been able to replicate his generally MVP-caliber regular seasons.

“We have the best fans in baseball,” Judge said. “They’re going to be loud, they’re going to be rowdy and have our back the whole game, so I’m excited about it.”

They may not have Judge’s back for long. The captain has shown few signs of getting on track in this postseason, going 6-for-40 with 19 strikeouts.

Oddly, in the final days of the regular season, Judge homered in five straight games and went 8-for-15 with seven walks in that span. He then struck out five times in the next-to-last game of the season, and that trend has continued.

A struggling Judge heard boos during losses in Games 3 and 4 at Yankee Stadium during an ALCS sweep at the hands of the Astros in 2022. And that was after he had just hit an American League-record 62 homers in the regular season.

“Guys are going to do what they need to do,” Judge said. “I gotta step up as well. Especially what Gleyber [Torres] and what Juan are doing at the top of the lineup, I’ve gotta back them up.”