NEW YORK — The earth has been moved and the chairs have been set up. The headstone has been chosen and the epitaph is almost complete:

Here lie the New York Yankees, who lost the 2024 World Series in…

Four games? Five?

All that’s left is to finish the engraving after a 4-2 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 3 on Monday night at Yankee Stadium.

“We know our backs are against the wall,” Aaron Judge said.

The Yankees have dug themselves a 3-0 hole that might as well be eight feet deep. No team before them has done what they need to do now in the World Series. In fact, no team in their position has even forced a sixth game.

“Hopefully we can tell this great story and shock the world,” said manager Aaron Boone.

An obituary for these Yankees could start in a number of ways, but the vision of Giancarlo Stanton rumbling toward home plate in the fourth inning might be an appropriate place to start. The point wasn’t whether it was the right call to have the lead Stanton run around third base trying to score on Anthony Volpe’s two-out single in the fourth inning down 3-0.

The problem was that the Yankees had put themselves in that position in the first place.

“In that situation, two outs, you have to roll the dice,” Stanton said.

So far this World Series, the Yankees have been outscored 14-7. During the regular season, New York’s offense – powered by Aaron Judge and Juan Soto – finished third in runs scored and first in home runs. But Judge is just 1-for-12 with seven strikeouts in the World Series and is in the midst of another terrible performance in October. The Yankees also couldn’t trust the bottom of their lineup — Anthony Rizzo, Alex Verdugo and Jose Trevino — to drive into Stanton, even from third base.

So when Volpe’s liner drove into shallow left field and landed in front of Teoscar Hernández, third base coach Luis Rojas started waving for Stanton to run home. Hernández has one of the stronger arms in baseball, with an average speed of 90.5 miles per hour. But he’s also slow at reaching most balls, and he’s not the most accurate either. An opposing scout said his club almost always runs on Hernández when it has the chance, and that the Yankees’ game plan would likely do the same. The scout spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

But in Stanton, the Yankees had another problem. He is their slowest runner and is constantly on cruise control as he tries to avoid the leg soft tissue injuries that have plagued him in recent years. He hasn’t grounded out all season with the urgency of a recreational jogger. He may be their most vulnerable player, yet he has been their best postseason hitter, with a team-best six home runs and an OPS of 1.110 in these playoffs. They didn’t want him trying to turn on the afterburners, let alone sliding home.

But that’s how desperate the Yankees were. Starting pitcher Clarke Schmidt had put them behind 3-0 after giving up a two-run shot to Freddie Freeman in the first inning and an RBI single in the third to Mookie Betts before retiring after just 2 2/3 innings left. His opponent, Walker Buehler, held off the Yankees’ bats.

So the Yankees sent Stanton home, even though it was risky, and it backfired when Hernández made a perfect throw to get him.

Giancarlo Stanton is not only the Yankees’ slowest player by far, but he is also their most vulnerable, making the decision to send him home all the more risky. (Alex Slitz/Getty Images)

Boone did not condemn Stanton’s sending, adding that he should rewatch the video.

“We were going to challenge Teoscar a little bit there, especially when he moves to the right,” Boone said. “Thanks to him. He had a good throw. I thought ‘G’ had a pretty good jump and (moved well) around third base. Difficult when you’re behind a couple. But a perfect throw can get him there.”

Did Stanton feel like he was sent in because the Yankees offense needed some help?

“I think you just have to roll in that spot until you get something going,” he said. “Get started.”

Now it’s too late for the Yankees to get much going. They enter Game 4 on Tuesday unwilling to start top prospect Gerrit Cole on short rest, opting instead for rookie Luis Gil, who has started just once this postseason.

They could win. But history says it wouldn’t matter, that sooner or later they would fail and that the Dodgers would probably end up celebrating a title on their home turf.

“In our minds, the goal is to win one game,” Judge said. “That’s how it starts. Even though we are 3-0 down, if we win one game, who knows what will happen in the next few.”

“We’re not where we want to be yet,” first baseman Rizzo said.

Only it’s no longer about where the Yankees want to be. It’s about how that epitaph will end.

Four games? Five?

(Top photo of Stanton sliding home: Luke Hales/Getty Images)