The win in Game 3 puts the Dodgers close to winning the championship crown

Dave Roberts could lead the Dodgers to ten championships and would still be best known for the stolen base that sparked the Red Sox' comeback from a three-game deficit against the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS.

So no one needed to remind Roberts that it was too early to celebrate Monday night, when the Dodgers fell just short of their second title under Roberts with a 4-2 victory over the Yankees, three games to zero in the World Series took the lead.

“There just has to be urgency,” Roberts said late Monday evening. “I just don’t want to let these guys come up for air.”

But even as his players echoed Roberts' words, there was a certain inevitability that the Dodgers' title was imminent and the beginning of an appreciation for the magnitude of their achievements.

The Dodgers led the majors with 98 wins despite an injury-riddled rotation. Their two most experienced starters, Gavin Stone and Tyler Glasnow, haven't pitched since August due to season-ending injuries. Neither does Hall of Fame inductee Clayton Kershaw, who didn't debut until July 25 while recovering from offseason shoulder surgery but made just seven starts before suffering a toe injury.

The Dodgers have used three bullpen games so far this month and plan to play another one tonight. Counting bullpen games, relievers accounted for 71 2/3 of the 125 innings Los Angeles threw in the playoffs.

“We've been through some ups and downs – it's still kind of weird that we think that way, and we still got 98 wins,” infielder Gavin Lux said. “But we had a lot of injuries that we struggled with.

“How many starters do we have? It’s crazy.”

In the first season of a 10-year, $700 million contract, Shohei Ohtani proved worthy of earning every heavily deferred penny (just a reminder that he's due $2 million per year through 2034 and the following 10 years). will receive $68 million per year for years). Compiling the first 50-homer/50-steal campaign in baseball history.

But Ohtani's final MVP season began unexpectedly dramatically on March 20, when his interpreter Ippei Mizuhara was fired after a 5-2 win over the Padres in Korea after ESPN reported that Mizuhara paid off his gambling debts by transferring money from Ohtani's account had settled. Mizuhara pleaded guilty to tax and bank fraud charges on June 4.

“I think we've overcome a lot from the moment we were in Korea this year,” Freddie Freeman said. “We have fought, we have faced adversity and we always come back and bounce back.”

The Dodgers' lineup wasn't as depleted as their rotation, but Ohtani and Teoscar Hernandez were the only everyday players to appear in at least 150 games. Mookie Betts missed nearly two months with a broken left hand, while Max Muncy was sidelined for more than three months with a strained right oblique hand.

Will Smith set career lows with a .248 average and .760 OPS. Freeman missed eight games in late July and early August after his son was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre syndrome. The potential Hall of Famer was batting .282 with an OPS of .854 — his lowest marks since 2015 — before suffering a severe right ankle sprain in the final week of the regular season.

Freeman sat out three of the Dodgers' 11 games in the NLDS and NLCS, but scored in each of the first three games of the World Series – including, of course, the walk-off grand slam in Game 1 on Friday night that likely clinched the win The potential clash between the Titans would be a disappointing climax for the Dodgers.

“We went to Freddie several times and said, 'Hey, we got you,' the last two series,” Muncy said after Freeman's two-run home run in the first inning silenced the raucous crowd of 49,368 at Yankee Stadium. “That's Freddie telling us, 'Hey, I've got you this time.'”

Even without an elite version of Freeman, the Dodgers were impressively relentless in the NLCS, scoring 46 runs – the most ever by an NL team in a playoff series – while defeating the Mets in six games. With Freeman resembling his usual self in the World Series, the Dodgers were properly shut out in only eight of their 27 innings – including four times in Game 1, when Yankees ace Gerrit Cole made it three times before closer Luke Weaver threw a perfect ninth pitch .

The Dodgers even left some meat on their bones Monday when they stranded seven baserunners — one less than they had in the first two games combined.

“To be honest, we’re still missing a few big hits here and there,” Muncy said. “We had some good situations. We stay relentless and that’s tough on the opposing team when there’s a little bit of traffic and a little bit of chaos every single inning.”

Now the Dodgers are one win away from the chaotic celebration they've been chasing for more than eight months. And even though they said all the right things Monday night, the idea was that the Dodgers would end their season with their first four-game losing streak since July 7-11 and Roberts would be on the other end of a three-game clean sweep comeback. far more unthinkable than the idea of ​​already appreciating the team that will likely be the next World Series champion.

“The last one is the hardest to get,” Lux said.

“You couldn’t ask for a better start to these three games,” Freeman said. “But one more.”