NEW YORK — The Dodgers’ lack of pitching hasn’t hurt them often this postseason. But in the third inning Tuesday night, manager Dave Roberts stood in the dugout without many appealing options.
Not only were the Dodgers running their fourth bullpen game of the playoffs in Game 4 of the World Series, trying to sweep the New York Yankees to seal the franchise’s eighth championship, but they were doing it with more limitations than normal.
Winning the first three games of this Series forced Roberts to ride his bullpen heavily, especially his two highest-leverage relievers, Michael Kopech and Blake Treinen. Because of that, the team had to find other ways to piece together the early outs in Tuesday’s game. And when trouble arose in the third inning, Roberts felt he had no choice but to ride it out.
With the Dodgers protecting an early one-run lead, right-hander Daniel Hudson ran into a bases-loaded jam. And with only rookie Landon Knack warming in the bullpen, Hudson stayed on the mound and threw a first-pitch slider to Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe.
On one titanic swing, the momentum of this one-sided matchup took a sudden turn.
Volpe hit a grand slam to left, the Yankees had their first lead since the 10th inning of Game 1, and in a game that became a blowout late, New York kept this series alive with an 11-4 victory at Yankee Stadium, forcing Game 5 back in the Bronx on Wednesday night.
“I don’t think anyone expected those guys to lay down,” Roberts said after the game.
But, the Dodgers certainly didn’t chase the knockout punch, either.
“Obviously we didn’t play well today,” right fielder Mookie Betts said. “And they did.”
When the Dodgers entered this postseason with just three healthy starting pitchers, they knew there’d be nights like this. Where the bullpen would have to cover all nine innings. Where the decision to use top relief arms or not wouldn’t be very clear.
Three previous times the Dodgers had a bullpen game this month, and it worked twice. First, to stave off elimination in Game 4 of the National League Division Series. Then again to clinch the pennant in Game 6 of the NL Championship Series.
“They’ve had obviously a number of guys get hurt,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “Which, credit to them, they’ve gotten creative and worked some things out.”
The one time it didn’t work, however, the Dodgers lost Game 2 of the NLCS. In many ways, Tuesday felt like deja vu.
To win the first three games of this World Series, the Dodgers’ bullpen was heavily taxed. Treinen threw 55 stressful pitches in Games 1 and 2. Kopech pitched in each game.
Because of that, Roberts issued what felt like a warning in his pregame news conference.
Knack (who yielded one run in four innings of relief) and fellow rookie Ben Casparius (one run in two innings as the opener) would have to provide length. And while the rest of the bullpen would be available, “I’d better make sure it’s in the right spot,” Roberts said.
“Every guy [we use],” he added, “will be with a cost going forward.”
For a while, it seemed like the Dodgers might thread that incredibly narrow needle.
Casparius held up his end of the bargain, giving up a run on an Alex Verdugo grounder in the second inning. The Dodgers, meanwhile, jumped in front on a two-run homer from Freddie Freeman in the first. It was his fourth of the Series, coming on a down-and-away slider from Luis Gil that just cleared the short wall in right field. It was also his sixth straight World Series game with a homer — going back to his time with the Atlanta Braves in 2021 — an MLB record.
“We were excited,” Roberts said of the mood after Freeman’s home run. “Those guys unfortunately answered back.”
With the heart of the Yankees lineup due up in the third, Hudson was the one trusted bullpen option Roberts was willing to turn to. The inning started well for the 37-year-old right-hander, who fanned Juan Soto. But as things started to spiral, Roberts was reluctant to dip deeper into his relief corps.
“I’m not going to use [someone else] in the third inning right there,” Roberts said when asked whether he considered left-handers Alex Vesia or Anthony Banda specifically, with the Yankees in the midst of a left-handed-heavy part of their lineup. “I just wasn’t going to use [them] in the third inning, no.”
Instead, Roberts watched Hudson plunk slumping Yankees star Aaron Judge, give up a long single off the wall to Jazz Chisholm Jr., then walk Giancarlo Stanton to load the bases.
“Uncharacteristic with the hit by pitch, the walk,” Roberts said of Hudson.
What came next felt much less surprising.
While Hudson had a solid 3.00 earned-run average in the regular season, he did give up 10 home runs, his most since he was a starter in 2011. And despite getting Anthony Rizzo to pop up for the second out, the long-ball bugaboo bit him against Volpe.
One big swing that might have shifted the dynamics of this Series.
Volpe, a childhood Yankees fan who was kicking himself earlier in the game after failing to score from second on an Austin Wells double that Kiké Hernández tracked to the wall in center, didn’t wait long to earn his redemption.
Like he did in a strikeout of the 23-year-old shortstop in Game 3, Hudson started Volpe with a first-pitch slider. But unlike their battle the previous night, this breaking ball was not off the plate, but rather knee high and over the inner half.
“A really bad slider,” Hudson called it, saying the ball felt like “it popped out of my hand and I just couldn’t catch it.”
The result was a line-drive, no-doubt grand slam to left. For the first time this week, Yankee Stadium erupted in celebration.
“I pretty much blacked out as soon as I saw it go over the fence,” Volpe said.
“I felt the ground literally shaking,” added Wells, who was standing on deck.
The Dodgers chipped away at the 5-2 deficit in the fifth inning by scoring two runs. Will Smith whacked a leadoff homer the other way. Freeman beat out a potential double play — while still running on his sprained right ankle — to get another run across.
But with Roberts continuing to shy away from his top relievers, that was as close as the Dodgers got.
Wells took Knack deep for a second-deck insurance homer in the sixth. The Yankees put the score out of reach with a five-run rally in the eighth against Brent Honeywell, three of which scored on Gleyber Torres’ game-icing blast.
The Dodgers, meanwhile, recorded one hit and seven strikeouts against five Yankees relievers — ensuring that, unlike Monday night, almost all of the 49,354 in attendance at Yankee Stadium stayed until the end (with the exception of two fans who were ejected in the first inning for trying to rip the ball out of Betts’ glove on a fly in foul territory).
“We’re up three to one right now, we feel pretty good about it,” Betts said. “But you know that they’re gonna fight … No lead is safe until you win the fourth game.”
History is still on the Dodgers’ side.
Only one team history has erased a 3-0 deficit in the playoffs. No team in World Series history even forced a Game 6 after facing a three-game hole.
But the Yankees will have their ace, Gerrit Cole, on the mound for Game 5 against Jack Flaherty. For the first time this week, they’ll also arrive at the ballpark buoyed by a sudden burst of momentum.
In other words: The Dodgers officially are playing with fire now.
And — in what was essentially the third game this October they punted on with their pitching decisions in hopes of keeping their top relievers fresh — they can only hope they didn’t just hand the Yankees a lit match.
