NEW YORK – One more day of summer. For every team faced with an early demise in the World Series, that’s the vision: one more day of summer to play with your friends. You’ll have to face the winter soon enough.
So on Tuesday afternoon, under steel-gray skies in the steel-gray fortress of Yankee Stadium, Anthony Rizzo gave voice to what all of his teammates were thinking.
“Today could be our last drive to the ballpark,” said Rizzo, the veteran first baseman. “Today could be the last time this team’s ever together.”
The everyday rhythms are part of baseball’s charm, the routine a source of comfort in a game so capricious. The New York Yankees did not think they had played very badly in this World Series, yet they’d lost the first three games to the Los Angeles Dodgers. No team in the last half-century had faced that deficit and won another game.
“We were down 2-0 and we said, ‘Hey, this s—’s not gonna be easy, but this is what we’re made for,” third baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. said. “We lost Game 3 and we said, ‘Hey, who doesn’t want to make history?’ I know I love making history. I love writing my name in the history books and being a part of it. So let’s do it.”
After thumping the Dodgers, 11-4, these Yankees have lots of chiseling to do before carving their place in history as the only team to win the World Series after losing the first three games.
But what you heard in their clubhouse after Game 4 was the sound of hope, of a plausible scenario for a singular achievement. On Wednesday, Rizzo noted, the Yankees will face Jack Flaherty and the Dodgers’ cast of high-leverage relievers. They’ve seen them all before, and they’ll be ready.
“The flight to L.A. will be really special if we make that happen,” Rizzo said.
Eight years ago with the Chicago Cubs, Rizzo played another Game 5 on Halloween eve, needing a win to extend the World Series. The Cubs trusted an ace starter, Jon Lester, and a well-rested closer, Aroldis Chapman, for a win that clinched a final road trip for a tight group. The Cubs would return from Cleveland as champions.
Now the Yankees can use their top starter, Gerrit Cole, to start Game 5, with relief ace Luke Weaver relatively fresh after throwing only 21 pitches Tuesday. The Yankees’ five-run rally in the eighth padded their lead and saved Weaver from working another inning.
Gleyber Torres’ three-run homer was the big blow then, but the preceding at-bat had the Yankees buzzing. With one out and runners at second and third, Alex Verdugo wore down Brent Honeywell Jr. for 11 pitches. His bouncer to second scored Anthony Volpe and set up the blast that followed.
“I know he probably didn’t put up the numbers in the regular season that he wanted to,” Aaron Judge, who was 1 for 3, said of Verdugo. “But all year long he just said: ‘Get me to the postseason and I’ll do something special.’ And that’s what we’ve seen so far this whole postseason.”
Verdugo hasn’t actually been Reggie Jackson; he’s hitting .200/.280/.311 in October, even worse than his regular season (.233/.291/.356). But his one home run this month came with two on and two outs in the ninth inning of Game 3 – a jolt of confidence for a slumbering offense.
The Dodgers started Game 4 just as they had the night before, with a two-run homer by Freddie Freeman in the top of the first. But while it was the same kind of hit, this one packed less punch. The Yankees were too awestruck to be discouraged.
“My first thought is: this guy is superhuman,” Weaver said. “You’re sitting there kind of marveling at what he’s doing. So you’ve got to give him all the respect and appreciation for what he’s doing on the biggest stage. But, I mean, you’re looking at it and it’s early, right? You’re not like, ‘Oh, it’s a repeat.’”
It was an all-new episode with a mostly fresh cast of Dodgers pitchers. Three of them were new to this World Series and covered seven innings. The pitcher the Yankees had seen already, Daniel Hudson, allowed Volpe’s go-ahead grand slam in the third.
“It really just takes one big swing, and I feel like that was Volpe’s big swing there,” said catcher Austin Wells, who doubled and homered like Volpe. “It allowed everyone to just take a deep breath and have fun. I think also the situation we were in, we just kind of needed to say ‘screw it’ and go after it and have fun because some guys may never come back to the World Series again.”
Volpe sure had fun; by the end, his muddy uniform was so brown that you’d think he played for the San Diego Padres. He lived the fantasy of every New York-born kid of his generation: a shortstop in pinstripes, starring in the World Series. He could get used to this extra month of work.
“It’s my first playoffs, but these have been probably the craziest things I’ve ever been a part of,” Volpe said. “So it’s just foot on the gas, always.”
The Yankees stalled for three games. Now the engine is purring. They’re still tracing a narrow path on the edge of a cliff, trying to do what no team has ever done: not just winning the World Series after losing the first three games, but simply forcing a Game 6.
Maybe they’ll make history. Maybe – probably – they won’t. But they’re still playing, and that’s the best they can do for now.
“I feel like today is a reminder to show you why we’re in the World Series, why we got this far,” Chisholm said, “and why we don’t expect to be done.”
(Top photo of the Yankees’ bench celebrating Gleyber Torres’ home run in Game 4: Elsa/Getty Images)
