Yankees crack Dodger bullpen, stay alive in World Series

NEW YORK – For the second time in the postseason, a bullpen game ended against the Los Angeles Dodgers as the New York Yankees avoided elimination in the World Series on Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium.

The 11-4 win in Game 4 gave the Yankees a chance to fight another day.

The Dodgers, hit by a series of injuries to starters this season, have used their bullpen regularly throughout postseason play and went 2-2 in those contests, beating the San in their first two playoff appearances Diego Padres and the New York Mets swept rounds. Dodger Stadium's game-winning win over the Mets in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series was a bullpen game, although the Mets cut them off when they used one in Game 2 of that series.

But if it's a save for the Dodgers, they won't have to resort to that tactic again in the best-of-seven series.

The Yanks are still down 3-1 and will be eliminated again on Wednesday evening. Game 5 at the Stadium features a repeat of the Game 1 starters: Gerrit Cole for the Yankees and Jack Flaherty for the Dodgers.

When the series returns to LA for Games 6 and 7, the Dodgers will have Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Walker Buehler available to start those games.

The Dodgers reached this point because they have nine pitchers on the injured list, while Joe Kelly and Evan Phillips were left off the 26-man World Series roster. The missing pitchers account for $40.5 million of LA's $339.8 million payroll – the second highest in the MLB. The bullpen they're relying on to fill the starting void is worth a total of $12.1 million.

And yet they are on the verge of winning the World Series in Brooklyn, LA for the eighth time in their history.

“Sometimes it’s a war of attrition. That’s how you have to do it,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “Some of their guys got hurt. We thank them for their creativity. There are many ways to skin a cat. You don’t always have to be conventional.”

The biggest problem with the bullpen approach is that the more pitchers a team uses in a game, the more likely it is that at least one of them will have an off night.

The Dodgers used eight different relievers in the last two games, and only one of them, Daniel Hudson, on consecutive nights.

Hudson was one of the relievers who wreaked havoc on the Yankees on Tuesday night. The other was Brent Honeywell in the later stages of the game. The Yankees combined for nine runs on six hits in the two innings, including a grand slam by Anthony Volpe in the third inning against Hudson and a three-run shot by Gleyber Torres in the eighth inning against Honeywell.

The bottom caused the most damage. Volpe, Austin Wells and Alex Verdugo were 5 of 10 with six runs scored and seven RBIs. Even Aaron Judge finally got into the action, driving in his first run of the World Series with an eighth-inning single against Honeywell. He's still 2 for 15 without a home run or an extra base hit.

The Yankees had scored just seven runs in the first three games of the series. They were a pent-up group of frustrated hitters, not unlike Yankees fans, 49,354 strong, just waiting for some kind of performance. When Volpe, the Yankees' Gold Glove shortstop and a New York City product, hit Hudson's first pitch into the left field stands, giving them a 5-2 lead, the crowd exploded.

“I had the feeling that the fans were about to erupt [Monday] But we just couldn’t enter anything,” Boone said. “You could finally see the highlight of Yankee Stadium in a World Series game.”

The Yankees still have major problems with it. No team has ever overcome a 3-0 deficit to win a World Series. No team down 3-0 has ever forced a Game 6. The only team to come back in MLB postseason history was the Boston Red Sox in 2004 against the Yankees in the American League Championship Series. Dave Roberts, now manager of the Dodgers, stole a key base in the ninth inning of Game 4 at Fenway Park and then scored the winning run that sparked the Red Sox's four-game comeback.

Boone won't look past the next game. “Just win one today, come back and do it again the next day,” Boone said. “That’s our mindset.”

Roberts, now on the other side of a 3-0 series lead loss, said he didn't even want to think about it at this point. He has to pitch enough to win the series.

His starters are still 11th among the 12 teams that made this year's playoffs with a 4.76 ERA. They averaged 3.9 innings per start.

This places a heavy burden on the relievers, even beyond just bullpen games. To get through the first three games, Roberts averaged at least five pitchers per game. The bullpen ranked eighth among playoff teams with a 4.12 ERA in the regular season.

Still, the Dodgers are 10-5 in the playoffs so far, one win in a championship.

“I feel great especially in the pitching and bullpen,” Roberts said. “Where we’re going [Game 5]nobody gets a day off. We knew we had a bullpen game, but we came away with six players rested. I have a good feeling about it and being 3-1 up.”