NEW YORK — You have to start somewhere.

As manager Aaron Boone and several players preached after Monday’s 4-2 loss to fall into the dreaded 3-0 hole in the World Series against the Dodgers, the Yankees can’t come back all at once. It requires a singular focus on the game ahead, while recognizing that there is still substantial work to be done. And if the Yankees want to become the first team in MLB history to come back from a 3-0 deficit in the World Series — an uphill battle that requires just three more wins after New York’s 11-4 victory over the Dodgers on Tuesday in the Bronx – they need to take the positives from Game 4 and find more ways to play their best ball before it’s too late.

“We started this year winning four games in a row,” veteran first baseman Anthony Rizzo said before Game 4. “We know we’re very capable of winning four games in a row. So hopefully this year we can finish with four games in a row. That’s what we have to do to become champions.”

Indeed, the Yankees started the regular season by winning five in a row, the first of eight winning streaks of at least four games during the 162-game campaign. New York added a ninth series earlier this month when it closed the ALDS with two wins in Kansas City before opening the ALCS with two wins against Cleveland. So yeah, this group is well versed in setting fire and quickly amassing a quartet of W’s.

Even more intimidating – aside from the October story that flatly states that their chances of returning in this fall classic are nil – is an opponent that has lost four games in a row just twice this season: a five-game skid in late May and a fall of four games in mid-July.

“There’s no way the Dodgers are going to give up,” Rizzo said. “It’s a very good team. But we win tonight and we get to play tomorrow.”

The Yankees won on Tuesday, so they get to play on Wednesday.

It was ultimately a comfortable win, but it wasn’t the smoothest start for the Yankees in their quest to avoid elimination. Freddie Freeman gave the Dodgers a quick 2-0 lead with another home run – his fourth of the series – to right field off Yankees starter Luis Gil. Anthony Volpe failed to score from second on a booming double off Austin Wells’ center field wall, limiting a second-inning rally to one run when it could have been more. Through the first few innings, the vibrations in Yankee Stadium went the wrong way, just as they had 24 hours earlier.

But everything changed in the bottom of the third, as the Yankees mounted a rally against Dodgers reliever Daniel Hudson, culminating in a grand slam by Volpe to grab a 5-2 lead and throw the Bronx into complete pandemonium. It was a memorable swing that more than made up for Volpe’s baserunning blunder an inning earlier and injected a level of energy — and relief — into a Yankees dugout that had been longing for such a moment all series.

“That big hit we were looking for happened,” outfielder Alex Verdugo said afterwards. “And it just felt like a big exhalation in the dugout, and everyone was able to play freely and easily again.”

Volpe’s grand slam was one of two particularly encouraging displays of power from young Yankees bats in Game 4, with the other coming in the bottom of the sixth inning, when rookie catcher Austin Wells launched a drive down the right field line into the upper deck for a solo homer followed by a slick bat flip. Wells went 4-for-43 in 12 postseason games entering Game 4, but after benching the rookie for Game 3 in favor of Jose Trevino, Boone reinserted Wells into the lineup for Game 4 and picked the fruits of his power potential on a grand scale. .

In a game where Juan Soto and Giancarlo Stanton – who have carried the Yankees’ lineup for most of October – delivered relatively little, it was very refreshing to see other parts of the Yankees’ lineup in the most crucial moments to see it rise. . Until Game 4, the bottom half of the lineup was a non-factor for New York, while the Dodgers got contributions from virtually everyone in their batting order. If the Yankees can continue to get more out of their lesser hitters — not to mention more out of their best hitter, Aaron Judge — suddenly these lineups start to look a little more even.

The Dodgers stayed within striking distance for much of Tuesday’s game, but the Yankees’ pitching staff kept them at bay until New York’s offense exploded with five runs in the eighth inning, putting the kibosh on any potential late drama to stand. The good atmosphere – and a little bit of confidence – had been restored in the stadium, and the players could feel it.

“The atmosphere was electric,” said right-hander Luke Weaver, New York’s bullpen arm, who collected more than three outs for the seventh time this postseason. “It just feels really good for the team to understand what that feels like, to get some of that electricity back or whatever we felt in the CS, the DS.”

With the Yankees ahead by two runs, Weaver came in with two outs in the seventh and a runner on second base and struck out Mookie Betts to end the frame before reappearing for the eighth and retired 3-4-5 Dodgers hitters – Freeman. Teoscar Hernández and Max Muncy – in order.

“I just understand that we’re a good team,” Weaver added. “And sometimes baseball is weird, but when you have it, you just don’t want it to go away. So we have to continue to build on that.”

Weaver has been the most impressive cog in another strong effort from the Yankees’ bullpen, which has stepped up repeatedly this postseason, a trend that should continue. Tommy Kahnle and Jake Cousins ​​were the only two of Boone’s favorite relievers who did not appear in Game 4 and thus could be particularly fresh for Game 5, but expect them to remain all hands on deck in another elimination game and with one next Thursday day off, if the series were to continue. On the other hand, the best options in the Dodgers’ bullpen will be well-rested after Dave Roberts opted to deploy a very select assortment of weapons when playing from behind in Game 4.

How much of either bullpen is expected in Game 5 will depend on the rematch of Game 1’s starting pitchers: Gerrit Cole and Jack Flaherty. Cole then beat Flaherty, but not by much; Flaherty allowed two runs in 5 1/3 innings, while Cole allowed one run in six innings. Round 2 between the two right-handers offers very different stakes than the first edition, where both starters hoped to set the tone in the series, but Game 1 would veer off course.

On Wednesday, Flaherty, who has alternated between strong and mediocre performances in his four starts in October, can put his team in position to seal the World Series in perhaps his final start as a Dodger as another attempt at free agency awaits him in the near future . to soften. All the ingredients are in place for Cole to pull off another signature start to his storied career, albeit one that would bring the Yankees just one game closer to the impossible.

That the Yankees have made it this far after a dismal first three games is an achievement: the past nine teams to trail 3-0 in the World Series have ultimately been swept, with the 1970 Reds being the most recent team to trail by three . -0 to force a Game 5. But the Yankees are far from satisfied.

“It won’t be easy, but this is what we were made for,” Jazz Chisholm Jr. said. “After we lost Game 3, we said, ‘Hey, who doesn’t want to make history?'”

For Chisholm, who spent a lot of time after the match praising his teammates and generating particular excitement about his friend Anthony Volpe’s grand slam, it’s about the unknown path ahead, both as an opportunity and as a embrace challenge.

“I know I enjoy making history. I love writing my name in the history books and being a part of it. So let’s do it.”

As several Yankees players took turns reacting to Game 4 amid the bustle of microphones and cameras in the home clubhouse, a TV loomed above them with a short to-do list:

“WIN TOMORROW, FLY THURSDAY.”