Yankees avoid World Series sweep by Dodgers

With a grand slam by Anthony Volpe, the New York Yankees defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers by a resounding score of 11-4 Tuesday and avoided a humiliating sweep in the 2024 World Series.

The Dodgers continue to dominate the Major League Baseball championship 3-1 overall and will have another chance to lift the trophy in Wednesday's Game 5, again in New York.

The Yankees, who dream of being the first to come back from a 3-0 deficit in a World Series, regained confidence in their batting on Tuesday with Volpe's grand slam and another three-run homer by Venezuelan slugger Gleyber Torres.

The “Bronx Bombers” overcame an early two-run deficit, which was the result of a historic home run by Freddie Freeman. The Yankees held off Dodgers, who were weighed down by the injury problems of their Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani.

With his two-run home run, Freeman has now homered in each of the first four games of this World Series, including a grand slam that gave the Dodgers the win in the 10th inning of the opener.

He also became the first player to homer in six straight World Series games, since he also did it in the last two games of the 2021 “Fall Classic” that he won with the Atlanta Braves.

Freeman's hit drove in Mookie Betts and struck fear into the 49,354 fans at Yankee Stadium, who saw no reaction from their stars.

With no news from American star Aaron Judge and Dominican slugger Juan Soto, it was Anthony Volpe who revived his hometown team.

The American first reduced the deficit with a run-scoring single in the second inning, and in the following inning he hit the mammoth grand slam that also brought in runs from Judge, Jazz Chisholm Jr and Giancarlo Santon.

Volpe's bomb was the sixth grand slam in these playoffs, another MLB record.

Explosive eighth inning

The Yankees took their first lead since Game 1, but the Dodgers kept fighting to try to clinch their first title since 2020, and eighth in their history.

The home lead was reduced from three runs to one in the fifth inning, when Will Smith hit a home run and Tommy Edman scored after another Freeman hit.

A big favorite for the World Series MVP award, the veteran Freeman seemingly forgot about the ankle sprain he has been dealing with in these playoffs to sprint to first base and continue to put pressure on the home team.

The Yankees escaped the comeback attempt with a solo home run by Austin Wells in the sixth inning.

In the next, the Dodgers had a great chance to react when Edman took second base with Ohtani at bat, but reliever Mark Leiter Jr. struck out the Japanese phenom.

Ohtani was off again Tuesday, limited by a partially dislocated left shoulder suffered in Game 2.

The Yankees sealed the win in an explosive five-run eighth inning, restoring their confidence for the near-impossible mission of a comeback.

First it was Verdugo who sent Volpe to the plate, and then Torres made the crowd erupt with a three-run homer.

The party was joined even by Aaron Judge, who has been a big disappointment so far in the World Series, who broke his drought by connecting a single that brought in Juan Soto for the team’s 11th run.