Down 3-0, Yankees focused on Game 4 before attempting near impossible World Series feat

No team has ever done what the Yankees will attempt, starting Tuesday night in Game 4 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium. When past teams have faced a 3-0 deficit in the best-of-seven Fall Classic, it has been a death sentence to their season, the last rites of their title hopes. Every one of those teams has lost the series.

Not-so-big news flash: That’s probably what’s going to happen to these Yanks, too. But, to their credit, they were at least saying the right things following their 4-2 loss to the Dodgers in Game 3 on Monday night. They know the task is gargantuan, the odds long.

“I know the numbers don't back it up,” said Nestor Cortes, who threw 1.2 scoreless innings of relief in Game 3. “I know there hasn't been a World Series team that's come back with that deficit. But we have the opportunity to write our own story. And I'm looking forward to [Tuesday], seeing these guys show up and, as a team, collectively, win this game and extend it to Game 5.”

Added Anthony Rizzo: “We all stick together here, a really close, close group. You have to be this close when you get this far, so I don’t see us just laying down [Tuesday]”

The Dodgers are the 25th team to take a 3-0 lead in the World Series and every one of the previous 24 won it all, 21 via sweep. The Yankees are facing a 3-0 Fall Classic crater for the fourth time in club history – they were swept by the 1922 New York Giants, the 1963 Los Angeles Dodgers and the 1976 Cincinnati Reds.

Of course, there’s one tiny bit of inspiration in October annals that says that what the Yankees hope to accomplish is not impossible. Might be a sour memory for Yankee fans, though. They doubtless remember 2004 and how the Red Sox turned the rivalry on its ear by rallying from 3-0 down in the AL Championship Series to stun the Yanks and shatter the Curse of the Bambino.

That series, of course, was not the World Series. But since then, the Red Sox have won the World Series four times, and the Yankees just once.

Weird that players wearing pinstripes now must look to that particular slice of painful history, eh?

Cortes was nine years old at the time. Doesn’t remember much, though he does recall someone from the Red Sox saying, “Don’t let us win one.” Or something like that. “It might have been Kevin Millar,” Cortes said.

That idea – win a game – is, obviously, the way it all starts. Aaron Boone knows it. “We’re trying to get a game, that’s where our focus lies,” the Yankee manager said. He talked about inking their own “amazing story” and hoping to “shock the world.”

But, he added, “Right now it’s about trying to get a lead, trying to grab a game and force another one and then on from there. But we’ve got to grab one first.” 

Who knows if they can? Their offense, so prolific during the season – the Yankees and Dodgers were two of three teams to average more than five runs per game – has only scored seven times in three games. The Dodgers have scored 14 runs.

Aaron Judge was 0-for-3 and is batting .140 in the postseason. He’s 1-for-12 in the World Series. The Yankee offense is so stale right now that they tried to score Giancarlo Stanton, who does not run well, from second base on a single to left field in the fourth inning. He was thrown out by Teoscar Hernández.

The Yankee rotation, a supposed advantage entering the series, considering that the beat-up Dodgers had only three starters, hasn’t performed well, with the exception of Gerrit Cole in Game 1 and the Yanks lost that game anyway.

In Game 3, Clarke Schmidt had command issues – the Dodgers will not chase pitches, so if you don’t throw strikes, they’ll just take walks. The Dodgers walked six times Monday and were also hit by a pitch – three of those runners scored.

Overall, the Yankee rotation has a 6.00 ERA in the World Series and that includes Cole’s one-run, six-inning outing. They turn to Luis Gil in Game 4, a rookie in the role of savior, at least for one day.

“Scoring early would be nice,” Rizzo said. “They’re going with a bullpen game, so we’ve seen a lot of their arms. We’ll try to wear them out as much as we can…It’s just one day at a time.”

It won’t be easy. Most teams in this position get an unhappy ending. Baseball history teaches us that. One scruffy, scrappy Red Sox team from 20 years ago is the exception, though that exception, again, didn’t happen in the World Series.

“We know the odds are stacked against us,” Cortes said. “But this team is too resilient. I think we showed enough fight in us to come back. And [if] there's a team out there that can do it, it'll be us.

“We’ll get our stuff together and come back [Tuesday] and try and win a ball game.”