NEW YORK — Shohei Ohtani is playing with a partially dislocated left shoulder. Freddie Freeman is dealing with the effects of a sprained right ankle.
One more win and the Los Angeles Dodgers can get their stars some rest after a championship celebration.
Ohtani, Freeman and the Dodgers can clinch the eighth World Series title in team history Tuesday night when they oppose the New York Yankees in Game 4.
The Dodgers lead the best-of-seven series three games to none. Of the 24 teams to win the first three games of the best-of-seven set, 21 completed the sweep and the other three sealed the title in five games.
Los Angeles, attempting to secure the first World Series sweep since the 2012 San Francisco Giants beat the Detroit Tigers, will use a bullpen game for the fourth time in the postseason on Tuesday.
New York, which is trying to avoid getting swept in the Fall Classic for the first time since 1976 against the Cincinnati Reds, will start Luis Gil.
Ohtani was back in the lineup when the Dodgers followed up their two wins in Los Angeles with a 4-2 victory on Monday at Yankee Stadium. The presumptive National League MVP, who was injured while trying to steal second base in the seventh inning on Saturday, set up two runs with productive plate appearances on Monday.
Ohtani opened the game with a four-pitch walk, and Freeman followed two batters later with a two-run homer. Ohtani also had a third-inning groundout that moved Tommy Edman to second ahead of a single by Mookie Betts.
“It’s just really focusing on winning the game tomorrow as a team, and there’s nothing better than to be able to have the opportunity to do so,” said Ohtani, who went 0-for-3 in Game 3 and is 1-for-11 in the series.
Freeman has homered in each of the first three games of the World Series after struggling with the injury in the Dodgers’ first two rounds of the playoffs against the San Diego Padres and New York Mets.
He went 7-for-32 (.219) with no homers and one RBI in the first two rounds. Freeman is 4-for-12 with seven RBIs in his second World Series, and he joined Barry Bonds (2002 Giants) and Hank Bauer (1958 Yankees) as the third player to homer in the first three games of a Fall Classic.
“That’s a really good team over there, so we don’t take anything for granted,” Los Angeles second baseman Gavin Lux said. “That last one’s going to be the hardest one to get. So we’ve just got to come out and do the same thing that we’ve been doing this entire postseason, which is take it at-bat by at-bat, pitch by pitch and win every pitch and hopefully at the end of that we’re where we want to be.”
The Yankees are hitting .186 in the series and are 4-for-20 with runners in scoring position in the three games. Aaron Judge went 0-for-3 with a walk on Monday, is 1-for-12 (.083) in the series and 6-for-43 (.140) in the postseason with 20 strikeouts.
“All it takes is one swing, one at-bat, one play (and) everything changes for us,” Judge said. “That’s just the mindset you got to have going into this. It just takes one game.”
Alex Verdugo hit a two-run homer in the ninth when the Yankees were down to their last strike. Giancarlo Stanton had two hits but was thrown out at the plate by left fielder Teoscar Hernandez.
The Dodgers, who did not announce which pitcher would open Game 4, are 2-1 in three previous bullpen games in the 2024 postseason. Ryan Brasier opened two of those games, pitching 1 1/3 scoreless innings when the Dodgers faced elimination in Game 4 of the NL Division Series against the Padres and then giving up one run in one inning of their Game 2 loss to the Mets in the NL Championship Series.
Brasier is 1-1 with a 4.50 ERA in seven postseason appearances this year after throwing a scoreless eighth inning on Monday.
Gil, a 15-game winner during the regular season, will make his second postseason start. Gil started Game 4 of the American League Championship Series against the Cleveland Guardians, and he allowed two runs on three hits in four innings and took a no-decision.
“I think it’s going to be great,” Gil said through an interpreter after making his World Series debut. “It’s going to be like a dream come true. Just being out there and taking action, I think it’s going to be incredible.”
Gil will be the first Yankees rookie pitcher to start a World Series game since Orlando Hernandez pitched seven innings of one-run ball in Game 2 against the San Diego Padres in 1998.
Gil faced the Dodgers on June 9 and allowed three runs on five hits in 5 2/3 innings in a no-decision. Trent Grisham hit a go-ahead three-run homer in the sixth inning of New York’s 6-4 win.
–Larry Fleisher, Field Level Media
