Dodgers win World Series Game 3 2024

NEW YORK – They crammed in crowded 4 and D trains, packed the Bronx’s sports activities bars and streamed via the Yankee Stadium gates, able to lend their voices to the comeback trigger. But it surely took all of three batters for these pinstripe-clad followers to be quieted, all of three batters for the seemingly unstoppable Dodgers to claim themselves in probably the most intimidating street environments in sports activities.

Sparked by – cease us in case you’ve heard this one – a Freddie Freeman residence run and steered by an distinctive outing from Walker Buehler, the Dodgers’ 4-2 overcome the Yankees in Sport 3 on Monday night time put them on the verge of a World Collection sweep.

How’d the Dodgers win this one? Nicely, they hit higher, pitched higher, ran the bases higher and caught the ball higher.

“I believe this staff is simply completely different than the groups we have had earlier than,” mentioned Buehler, “by way of the way in which we function in there with the 26 guys which are energetic that day. There’s this bond that is form of completely different. We play for one another.”

Although they didn’t capitalize on alternatives to show it right into a blowout and the Yankees obtained some late life from Alex Verdugo’s two-run homer off Michael Kopech within the ninth, the Dodgers had been in management early and sometimes and at the moment are only a win away from their second World Collection title in 5 years and their first in a full season since 1988.

“Hopefully we will go be this wonderful story and shock the world,” supervisor Aaron Boone mentioned. “However proper now it is about making an attempt to get a lead, making an attempt to seize a sport, and power one other one, after which on from there.”

In all best-of-seven postseason sequence, groups taking a 3-0 lead have gone on to win the sequence 39 of 40 occasions (98%), together with 31 sweeps. Simply two groups down 3-0 have even compelled a Sport 7: The 2020 Astros, who misplaced to the Rays within the ALCS, and the 2004 Purple Sox, who famously beat the Yankees within the ALCS.

The Dodgers’ 3-0 sequence lead felt like a foregone conclusion early on this one.

Freeman has now homered in every of his final 5 World Collection video games, relationship again to his time with the Braves in 2021. His three dingers on this sequence have come whereas nursing a sprained proper ankle.

“Like I have been saying the previous couple of days, these days off [between rounds] had been big for me,” Freeman mentioned. “I obtained my ankle in a spot the place each single sport afterwards, it is not because it was within the NLCS and NLDS. … I obtained my ankle in a spot the place I might work on my swing, and I obtained it into a great spot, fortunately, going into the sequence.”

One other run got here within the third, when NLCS MVP Tommy Edman drew a stroll, superior to second on an Ohtani groundout after which made an ideal learn on Mookie Betts’ opposite-field single to proper to motor residence and make it 3-0. The Dodgers might have damaged the sport open that inning after they loaded the bases and compelled Boone to go to his bullpen by bringing in Mark Leiter Jr. with two outs. However Will Smith grounded out to finish the risk.

The Dodgers stranded two extra runners within the fourth, however they manufactured one other insurance coverage run within the sixth when Gavin Lux obtained hit by a pitch, swiped second and scored on a Kiké Hernández single.

These Dodgers runs quieted the group, and Buehler silenced the Yankees’ bats.

“Walker has been pitching large video games for a very long time, just about his entire profession, even in faculty, when he was with Vanderbilt,” Freeman mentioned. “So these lights aren’t too large for him.”

Regardless of his big-game popularity, Buehler had an uncharacteristically troublesome yr in his first season again from Tommy John surgical procedure. However in 5 scoreless innings during which he allowed only a pair of hits with two walks and 5 strikeouts, Buehler regarded like his previous self, with good life on his fastball. He now has a 0.50 ERA in 18 profession World Collection innings.

“We play skilled baseball for a residing,” Buehler mentioned. “When it is going good, there’s not a lot else you’d reasonably do on this earth.”

The one time the Yankees obtained a runner to second base towards Buehler got here when Giancarlo Stanton doubled within the fourth. However when Anthony Volpe singled to shallow left with two outs, Yankees third-base coach Luis Rojas aggressively despatched Stanton residence, and the imposing DH was reduce down by an ideal throw from Teoscar Hernández.

That the Yankees despatched Stanton there speaks to how determined they’ve been to get one thing going.

“We’ll problem Teoscar there just a little bit, particularly when he is transferring to the precise,” Boone mentioned. “Credit score to him, he had a superb throw.”

This was one other ineffective night for the Yankees’ captain Aaron Choose, one other night time once they struggled to get assist from the underside half of their lineup (once they had two aboard and two out with Anthony Banda on the mound for L.A. within the seventh, Gleyber Torres was known as out in search of strike three), one other night time when their starter didn’t have it. Although Verdugo’s two-out, two-run homer within the ninth put a late jolt into the constructing, it was too late to spark an actual rally.

To assume, the Yankees had been as soon as one out from a 1-0 lead on this Collection. Every little thing modified when Freeman related with a Nestor Cortes fastball and limped his means into the historical past books.

“You recognize, this yr, we have battled, we have confronted adversity, and we simply preserve coming again and punching again,” Freeman mentioned. “And it is only a credit score to our guys, our workers, everybody on this group, we imagine in ourselves, and we have been doing it to this point.”

Now, if the Yanks don’t reply and begin doing their very own impression of the 2004 Purple Sox, the Dodgers are dangerously near turning this blockbuster battle of iconic franchises and signature stars right into a matchup of minimal size.