Baseball: Dodgers vs Yankees

Baseball: The 2024 World Series shifting to Yankee Stadium for Game 3 did not slow the Los Angeles Dodgers one bit. Freddie Freeman got the Dodgers going with another Fall Classic home run and Walker Buehler and the Dodgers bullpen combined to quiet the New York Yankees’ offense again. The Yankees were supposed to have the starting-pitching advantage in this series.

The Dodgers have completely obliterated it. Buehler pitched five scoreless innings in Game 3 after Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed just one run in 6 1/3 innings in Game 2 and Jack Flaherty allowed two runs in 5 1/3 innings in Game 1. The three have combined for a 1.62, the lowest by a team’s first three starters in the World Series since the Cleveland in 2016.

Among the three, Buehler was probably the most uncertain. Buehler returned this year from a second Tommy John surgery, struggled through a 5.38 ERA in 16 regular-season starts and seemed to have lost his overpowering fastball. But Buehler found an effective curveball against the New York Mets in the National League Championship Series and finally got his lively fastball back.

The Dodgers are now one win away from their first championship in four years and their first full-season title since 1988.

At the most critical juncture, starting pitching has gone from the Dodgers’ biggest uncertainty to one of their greatest strengths. And the Dodgers’ biggest concern, the overall health of first baseman and No. 3 hitter Freeman, does not seem to be one at all anymore. The Yankees are facing an 0-3 series hole because their offense, led by their presumptive American League MVP, has gone missing.

On Monday October 28th 2024, the Yankees produced four hits, five walks, and boos from the home crowd. Giancarlo Stanton went 2-for-4, the rest of the Yankees finished 2-for-25. Aaron Judge went 0-for-3 with a strikeout and a walk, running his series tally to 1-for-12 with seven strikeouts. Stanton’s double in the fourth inning Monday was New York’s only extra-base hit.

The Yankees went 1-for-4 with runners in scoring position and left seven runners on base. The Yankees had rallies end with a questionable send, Stanton getting thrown out at home in the fourth inning. And a questionable strike three call, Gleyber Torres taking a pitch above the strike zone with two runners on base in the seventh inning. The Yankees, who have managed to score five runs in this series, are another quiet night away from getting swept.

While the oddsmakers favored the Dodgers in this series, it was by a slight margin, and evaluators saw it as close to a coin flip.

Three games in, the Dodgers had so thoroughly shut down Yankees hitters that crowning Los Angeles feels like an inevitability. Entering this series, Major League Baseball (MLB) teams took 3-0 series leads 40 times. Thirty-one of them ended in sweeps. The Yankees could only hope Luis Gil showed up and pitched better than Carlos Rodón and Clarke Schmidt did in Games 2 and 3.

And even then, considering how the Yankees’ offense had performed this series, the prospect of the Dodgers going with an all-bullpen game on Tuesday October 29th 2024 did not seem all that disadvantageous. The only baseball team ever to come back from down 3-0 in a best-of-seven series was the 2004 Boston Red Sox against the Yankees. The Yankees needed a miracle at this point.

The way the Yankees were playing, it was difficult to envision what that looked like. On October 9th 2024, there was no love lost between the Dodgers and the San Diego Padres in baseball. Both sides reminded us of their mutual dislike during a heated Game 2, which resulted in San Diego evening up the National League Division Series at one game apiece with a 10-2 blowout win over the Dodgers.

Manny Machado and Flaherty got into a pair of heated discussions.

Jurickson Profar and Will Smith had their second disagreement of the season at home plate, months after the Dodgers’ backstop called the Padres’ outfielder irrelevant. The meeting between the two National League West rivals was something every baseball fan wanted to watch. Through two games, it had not a shortage of drama. And now it was a best-of-three series for a chance to move on to the National League Championship Series.

The rivalry was good for baseball. As the series shifted to Petco Park, the Dodgers would look to accomplish something they had not done since the 2021 postseason: Win a game on the road. If the Dodgers did not, their season would come to an end in the National League Division Series for a third consecutive season. The Padres, on the other hand, would look to continue their momentum in what would be another hostile environment.

The Padres was 2-0 at home and eliminated the Dodgers with two wins at Petco Park during the 2022 National League Division Series. The Dodgers were not going to sit down and watch the Padres went with their business. In September 2024, the Yankees lost their baseball series finale to the Seattle Mariners, but the biggest story was the health of Juan Soto.

Soto made an incredible catch in foul territory but slid into the wall, banging his knee.

Soto was in visible pain but finished the game. With the Yankees having already clinched a postseason berth, and with a four-game lead in the American League East, the team could be conservative and give Soto a day off. In addition to Soto, the Yankees had to be careful with Jake Cousins after he suffered right pec tightness. Cousins might need a few days off to recover.

Cousins had been one of Aaron Boone’s most trusted relievers. Clay Holmes pitched two days in a row to end the Seattle series, so he would not be available. Marcus Stroman pitched a few innings to get his second career save, so he could be an option. Luke Weaver was also a name to watch. Gerrit Cole’s last time out was an adventure. Cole held down the Red Sox for most of the game but he intentionally walked Rafael Devers with the bases empty and imploded from there.

Cole had been solid, allowing just four runs over his last 17 innings pitched. In five career starts at the Oakland Coliseum, Cole had a 2.30 ERA and a 1.085 WHIP. It was a disappointing sophomore season for Anthony Volpe. While Volpe improved, he was nowhere near where the Yankees thought he would be. Volpe slashed .245/.292/.367, and Boone finally benched his young shortstop for a game.

Volpe returned for the final two games of the Seattle series, where he went 1-for-7 with three strikeouts.

Volpe was the Yankees’ future at the position so they needed for him to show some life, especially as he entered his first postseason. In three games at the Coliseum, Volpe was 7-for-12, so maybe a trip to Oakland was what he needed. The Yankees entered this series four games ahead of the Baltimore Orioles for the division lead, with a magic number of six.

Once the three-game set with Oakland was done, the Yankees hosted the Orioles for three games. Baltimore hosted the red-hot Detroit Tigers, so they could have their hands full. With the uncertainty surrounding Soto, Judge would be needed more than ever. That could also backfire as Oakland pitched around Judge even more with Soto not in the lineup. Brent Rooker was having a career year, batting .304 with a career-high 38 bombs.

Rooker seemed like the sort of guy who would take the Yankees pitching deep at least once. On October 5th 2020, the second round of the 2020 MLB playoffs were underway, with the two American League Division Series beginning play at neutral sites. The Houston Astros pounced on the Oakland Athletics in a matchup at Dodger Stadium before the Yankees got the jump on the Tampa Bay Rays behind a four-homer attack that included a game-breaking grand slam by Stanton.

The Yankees designated hitter’s ninth-inning grand slam against the mighty Rays bullpen sealed a 9-3 victory.

The big takeaway was that the Bronx Bombers picked up where they left off in Cleveland, making mincemeat of yet another elite pitching staff. This time around, the victim was 2018 Cy Young winner Blake Snell. Home runs by Clint Frazier, Kyle Higashioka, and Judge off Snell gave the Bombers a 4-3 lead through five innings, which they never relinquished.

The Yankees used the formula they used all season to score runs: the long ball. The Yankees scored 49.5% of its regular-season runs via home runs, and 21 of the Yankees’ 31 runs so far this postseason came via home runs. The Yankees hit 11 homers in their first three postseason games of 2020, the most postseason homers any team had ever hit in a three-game span.

If Game 1 was any indication, the Yankees had lived up to their claims that their 2-8 regular-season record against the Rays was a distant memory and that they were truly a fully operational death star when they had a fully healthy lineup. The Rays had one of the deepest pitching staffs in the majors, and would counter with yet another ace, Tyler Glasnow, in Game 2, while the Yankees would go with a surprising choice in 21-year-old rookie Deivi Garcia. Both of Carlos Correa’s home runs went out to straightaway center field, totaling 829 feet.

Astros manager Dusty Baker noted over that his team was not playing its best ball heading into this American League Division Series.

Baker was still waiting for his accomplished hitters to get going. That might spell trouble for the rest of the field. On October 2nd 2020, the Miami Marlins punched their ticket to the National League Division Series with a 2-0 win over the Chicago Cubs in Game 2 of the best-of-three Wild Card Series at Wrigley Field. Sixto Sanchez threw five scoreless innings with six strikeouts in the win for the underdog Marlins.

Garrett Cooper hit a solo home run for Miami and Magneuris Sierra added an RBI single for the game’s only scoring. With their sweep, the Marlins extended their undefeated postseason series streak. The No. 6 seed Marlins would face the No. 2 seed Atlanta Braves in the best-of-five National League Division Series. Sanchez came out on top in the duel.

Sanchez looked primed for the big stage in his first career postseason start. Sanchez faced some trouble in the fifth inning when he found himself facing the Cubs right fielder Kyle Schwarber with the bases loaded and two outs. Sanchez pitched himself out of the jam and got Schwarber to pop up on an 88 mph changeup for the final out. Sanchez had got poise too, he definitely echoed Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez.

In fact, Sanchez cited Martinez as his baseball idol.

Sanchez was the seventh-youngest pitcher with a start of five or more scoreless innings pitched in his postseason debut. The only other younger pitchers to do it were Jim Palmer, Chief Bender, Steve Avery, Wally Bunker, Storm Davis, and Waite Hoyt. Furthermore, Sanchez threw 65 of his 89 pitches as four-seam fastballs, with a blistering average of 98.3 mph.

In his start, Sanchez hit the 100-mph or higher mark on seven pitches, tying him with Nathan Eovaldi for fourth most in a postseason start since the pitch tracking began back in 2008. Yu Darvish certainly had a solid start as well, and he had been a steady presence for the Cubs throughout the regular season. The Cooper home run did not come until Darvish’s 90th pitch of the game.

But Darvish’s start was soured by Chicago’s offense in Game 2, or lack thereof. Speaking of which, the Cubs scored just one run in the two-game series. In the Game 1 loss, the Cubs got their lone run on Ian Happ’s two-out homer in the fifth inning. Happ had two of the Cubs’ four hits in Game 1. The lineup was not any better in Game 2 with their 2-3-4 hitters, Anthony Rizzo, Schwarber, and Kris Bryant, going 0-for-11.

That was a main chunk of the Cubs’ championship core from their 2016 World Series run.

Jason Heyward went 2-for-3 while Javier Baez was 0-for-4 with two strikeouts. The Cubs had not found much postseason success since winning in 2016. With their Game 2 loss to the Marlins, the Cubs lost 9 of their last 13 postseason games. The Marlins continued to add to their magical postseason resume. The 2020 postseason was just the Marlins’ third playoff appearance and first since winning the 2003 World Series.

The undefeated record was impressive. But what made it more impressive was the fact that they added to the win column as major underdogs. Considering their National League Wild Card Series win came just a few months after the team suffered a massive covid outbreak at the start of the 2020 regular season, it was all the more remarkable. Just days into the delayed and abbreviated 2020 season, the Marlins suffered at least 20 positive cases of covid, with 18 total players tested positive.

The Marlins were forced to quarantine in a hotel in Philadelphia before gaining clearance to resume their season. And once the Marlins did, they played several doubleheaders to make up for the postponed games. The resiliency of the Marlins was really something special to witness. It was unclear whether outfielder Starling Marte would be cleared to play during the Division Series.

Marte was the Marlins’ best all-around player.

The Marlins had Marte listed as day-to-day, and the club hoped he would be able to play through the injury later in the postseason. Marte suffered a nondisplaced fracture of the bone running between his left pinky and wrist on a fastball. After a weird, truncated regular season in which their most notable accomplishment was having none of their players contract covid, the Cubs made the MLB playoffs for the fifth time in the past six years.

There were no fans in the stands in 2020, which meant there was no vending. Wrigley Field was one of the few remaining American stadiums that was situated in a residential neighborhood rather than a 14-acre parking lot. On game days, Wrigleyville was usually thronged with people in Cubs gear, with each new arrival of the elevated train disgorging hundreds of new fans.

The game began with “The Star-Spangled Banner” sung by local anthem celebrity John Vincent. The big-lunged Vincent was known for extending the final note of the phrase “land of the free” and the crowd always reacted to this feat the exact same way. First, they cheered at a normal volume. Then, they got sort of quiet. Then, when they realized that Vincent was still holding his note, they erupted in ear-splitting cheers and applause.

But with no crowd to egg him on, Vincent seemed to pull up short.

Even though nothing was the same 2020, the stadium personnel were committed to having things sound the same, more or less. The PA announcer still shouted out each hitter’s name, and the batters still heard their chosen walk-up songs. The Cubs were up 1–0 in the top of the seventh, but the Marlins were threatening. As the half-inning ended, a recording of long-dead Cubs broadcaster Harry Caray singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” emanated from Wrigley.

Back in 2003, the last time the Cubs played the Marlins in the playoffs, Wrigleyville was coursing with excitement. The stadium was packed for every game of that National League Championship Series, and the fans who could not get inside filled the bars and streets.