New York’s Anthony Volpe, right, celebrates with Aaron Judge after hitting a grand slam against Los Angeles during the third inning of Game 4  Tuesday night in New York. Seth Wenig/Associated Press

NEW YORK — Anthony Volpe’s third-inning grand slam overcame Freddie Freeman’s record-setting home run, and the New York Yankees avoided a World Series sweep with an 11-4 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday night that forced a Game 5.

Freeman homered for his sixth straight Series game, hitting a two-run drive in the first inning for the second straight night and again stunning the Yankee Stadium crowd.

Seeking to become the first team to overcome a 3-0 Series deficit, New York surged ahead 5-2 on Alex Verdugo’s RBI grounder in the second and Volpe’s drive against Daniel Hudson in the third. Volpe turned on a first-pitch slider at the knees and drove it into the left-field seats.

Volpe came across with New York’s first run when he walked after falling behind 0-2 in the count in the second inning. He also doubled and stole two bases.

Austin Wells and Gleyber Torres added homers for the Yankees, who broke open the game with a five-run eighth. New York had scored just seven runs in the first three games.

Los Angeles closed within 6-4 in a two-run fifth that included Will Smith’s homer off starter Luis Gil and an RBI grounder by Freeman. Despite a sprained right ankle, Freeman beat a relay to avoid an inning-ending double play on what originally was ruled an out but was reversed in a video review.

Advertisement

Wells hit a second-deck homer in the sixth against Landon Knack, and Verdugo added another run-scoring grounder in the eighth ahead of Torres’ three-run homer off Brent Honeywell.

Tim Hill, winning pitcher Clay Holmes, Mark Leiter Jr., Luke Weaver and Tim Mayza strung together five innings of one-hit relief with seven strikeouts, and the Yankees avoided what would have been their first losing Series sweep since 1976.

Game 5 is Wednesday night, with the Yankees ace Gerrit Cole and the Dodgers’ Jack Flaherty meeting in a rematch of Game 1.

New York’s Aaron Judge drove in his first run of the Series with an RBI single in the eighth and is 2 for 15 in the four games. Dodgers sensation Shohei Ohtani also is 2 for 15 after going 1 for 4 with a single, his first hit since partially separating his left shoulder in Game 2.

Twenty-one of the previous 24 teams to take 3-0 Series leads went on to sweeps, all but the 1910 Philadelphia Athletics against the Chicago Cubs, the 1937 Yankees against the New York Giants and the 1970 Baltimore Orioles against the Cincinnati Reds. All three of those Series ended in five games.

The 2004 Boston Red Sox, sparked by a stolen base from current Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, are the only team to overcome a 3-0 deficit in any round, beating the Yankees in the AL Championship Series in 2004.

Advertisement

New York stopped a seven-game Series losing streak against the Dodgers dating to 1981. The Yankees got their first seven RBI from the bottom three hitters in their batting order, Volpe, Wells and Verdugo, who had entered 4 for 32 with three RBI in the Series.

Freeman homered when he deposited a slider from Gil into the right-field short porch following Mookie Betts’ one-out double. He became the first player to homer in the first four games of a World Series and his streak of long balls in six straight games is one more than Houston’s George Springer in 2017 and ’19.

Freeman’s walk-off grand slam with two outs in the 10th inning turned around the opener, giving the Dodgers a 6-3 win. The Yankees had not led since then.

Volpe walked in the second against rookie Ben Casparias, reached third on Wells’ double off the center-field wall and scored on Verdugo’s groundout.

Losing pitcher Hudson loaded the bases in the third when he Judge with a pitch with one out, Jazz Chisholm Jr. singled off the right-field wall and Giancarlo Stanton walked. Anthony Rizzo popped out and Volpe hit the record sixth slam of the postseason.

A FAN was ejected after prying a foul ball out of the glove of Los Angeles Dodgers right fielder Mookie Betts.

Betts leaped at the wall in foul territory and initially caught Gleyber Torres’ pop up in the first inning, but a fan in the first row with a gray Yankees’ road jersey grabbed Betts’ glove with both hands and pulled the ball out. Torres was immediately called out on fan interference.

Join the Conversation

Please sign into your Press Herald account to participate in conversations below. If you do not have an account, you can register or subscribe. Questions? Please see our FAQs.