NEW YORK — Before a do-or-die Game 4 at Yankee Stadium, Jazz Chisholm thought about wearing Timberlands on the field for batting practice. They were gifted to the team by outfielder Alex Verdugo, who “just wanted to do something cool for the boys.”
For three games to start the World Series, a Yankees offense that had launched more homers and taken more free passes than any team in baseball looked like a shell of itself. At the time Freddie Freeman launched another go-ahead first-inning blast in Game 4, he had knocked in more runs during the series than the entire New York lineup.
The Yankees entered Tuesday night with a total of seven runs through three games and only four hits with runners in scoring position. They looked tight. Verdugo, whose ninth-inning homer the night before provided their only runs in Game 3, sought to loosen things up. Well, that, plus he “felt like Timberlands just feel like New York” and he “wanted to get the boys some steppin’ shoes.”
“Mine was more just give them that, give them something to lighten it up,” Verdugo said.
Whether the gift helped at all, or the Yankees offense simply enjoyed seeing a Dodgers bullpen game featuring a parade of their lower-leverage arms, the group finally ignited in an 11-4 rout.
A mindset change was part of the equation.
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“The situation we were in, I think that 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,” catcher Austin Wells said. “So, enjoying the game, I think that allowed us to play a lot looser tonight.”
Anthony Volpe’s go-ahead grand slam, which finally gave Yankee Stadium a reason to erupt, didn’t hurt, either. Wells said he thought that hit allowed the rest of the lineup to take a deep breath.
It also forced Dodgers manager Dave Roberts to think long term. He essentially punted the rest of the way, the same way he did in Game 2 of the NLCS when the Mets jumped ahead early in a bullpen game, so as not to overwork the relievers he trusts the most or allow the opposition to see them in a game they were unlikely to take anyway. It worked then.
The danger of that decision on Tuesday is it helped a group of scuffling Yankees hitters to break out and gain confidence.
Wells, who was 4-for-43 to begin the postseason and was given the previous game off, followed three innings after Volpe’s blast with a home run. Then came a five-run barrage in the eighth, when Gleyber Torres put the game away with the Yankees’ third home run of the night.
A Yankees offense that had not scored more than three runs in a game during the series broke out with nine hits and six free passes against a medley of Dodgers relievers. The bottom of the lineup provided a spark, but eight of the nine players in the lineup reached base. Perhaps most encouragingly for the Yankees, Aaron Judge demonstrated some promising signs, reaching base four times and knocking in a run in his final at-bat of the game.
“Once he’s on base, I feel like everybody gets going,” Chisholm said.
The World Series had gone 11 straight years without a sweep. The Yankees awoke from their slumber to run that streak to 12. The 11-run fusillade was tied for the second-most ever by a club facing elimination in the World Series.
The offensive approach that got them to the World Series finally showed up to help them keep their season alive.
“Knowing that this was the last guaranteed day of baseball for the season, definitely didn’t want to take it for granted and wanted to enjoy the moment,” Wells said. “I think if you put too much pressure on it at this point, like, it’s just going to … you’re going to fail yourself, and you’re not going to enjoy the journey.”
That journey will now continue on Thursday, when the Yankees have to feel good about their chances of sending the series back to Los Angeles.
If they’re able to do that, they’ll make history in the process. The Yankees are the 25th team to face a 3-0 deficit in the World Series. Twenty-one of the previous 24 teams to face that margin were swept. The other three lost in Game 5.
But the other three didn’t have Gerrit Cole on the mound.
“Every time G goes out there, we feel we’re in a great spot,” Chisholm said. “He’s like the best pitcher in the world. You see him out there, you see confidence.”
Cole allowed just one run and only four baserunners in six innings to start the series. He departed with the lead in a game that ended with a walk-off grand slam off the bat of Freeman, who has made his mark in every game this series. Freeman followed those late-game heroics with a solo homer in Game 2, then quieted the Yankees’ crowd with a two-run shot that sapped the energy from the stadium in Game 3.
When Freeman did the exact same thing again in Game 4, setting a major-league record with a home run in his sixth straight World Series game, it looked like he might have delivered the dagger to the Yankees’ season.
This time, though, they answered back.
The 2004 Red Sox are the only MLB team to dig its way out of a 3-0 hole in a best-of-seven series, when it did so against the Yankees in the American League Championship Series.
But the Yankees, with three more games to play for their lives, aren’t thinking that far ahead. Anthony Rizzo, whose 2016 World Series champion Cubs emerged victorious from a 3-1 deficit in the World Series — where the Yankees find themselves now — knows the danger of that.
“It was all about just getting to Game 6,” Rizzo said. “We knew Game 5 was going to be really hard.”
If the offense that showed up Wednesday reveals itself again, especially with Cole on the mound, the Yankees have a real chance of extending the series. Even if they can’t wear Timberlands to batting practice.
“We’ve got to focus on, ‘Win another game,’” Judge said. “We’ll look up at the end of it and see what happens.”
Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on Twitter at @RowanKavner.
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