NEW YORK – Fifteen years after little Anthony Volpe watched the Yankees parade with the World Series trophy, he saved their season and kept alive the hope of an unlikely title.

New York moved closer to a sweep in the World Series when Freddie Freeman hit another first-inning home run.

Volpe, a New York native whose family idolizes the pinstripes of generations, turned on a knee-high slider and perhaps also reshaped the Series. His third-inning grand slam lifted the Yankees to an 11-4 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday night, forcing a Game 5.

“The place was shaking. I literally felt the ground shaking,” Yankees catcher Austin Wells said.

Wells and Gleyber Torres added home runs for the Yankees, who broke the game open with a five-run eighth.

New York, which had scored just seven points in its first three games, had some of its swagger back. Wells spoke after the game wearing a “Fully Operational Death Star” Yankees T-shirt, referencing general manager Brian Cashman’s 2018 comment.

Fans in the sold-out crowd of 49,354 chanted Volpe’s name during the ninth inning.

“It’s like you finally saw the top of Yankee Stadium in a World Series game,” Aaron Boone said after his first World Series victory as New York’s manager. “When Anthony hit that ball, it was fun to see Yankee Stadium erupt.”

Wells said the dire situation after Monday’s loss had eased the pressure.

“Why don’t you go out tomorrow and have fun?” he described as the mood.

Freeman homered for his sixth straight Series game when he threw a slider from rookie Luis Gil into the short porch in right field after 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 from 2017 and ’19.

“I’ll look back on it after hopefully we win and can get this thing done tomorrow,” Freeman said. “Pretty cool. Of course I hope I can keep it up tomorrow.”

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

Trying to become the first team to overcome a 3-0 Series deficit, New York took a 5-2 lead on Alex Verdugo’s RBI grounder in the second and Volpe’s drive against Daniel Hudson.

“All it takes is just one swing,” Yankees captain Aaron Judge said.

Volpe sent Hudson’s first pitch into the left field seats.

“I blacked out as soon as I saw him go over the fence,” Volpe said.

The 23-year-old Volpe was a Gold Glove shortstop in his second big league season, also hitting a double and becoming the first player in Series history with a grand slam and a pair of stolen bases in one game. He was 8 the last time the Yankees won the Series.

Volpe scored New York’s first run when he walked after trailing 0-2 in the second inning. He made a baserunning blunder when he went back to second base to tag and failed to score on Wells’ double from the center-field wall, banging on his own leg in anger. Verdugo followed with an RBI grounder.

“They’re going to fight,” Betts said. “If you’ve made it this far, you have a resilient team that will fight all the way.”

Los Angeles closed 6-4 in a two-run fifth, including Will Smith’s home run off Gil and an RBI grounder by Freeman. Despite a sprained right ankle, Freeman beat a relay to prevent a double play that ended the inning at what was originally ruled out as no, but was overturned in a video review.

Wells hit a homer into the second deck in the sixth against Landon Knack, and Verdugo added another run-scoring grounder in the eighth — capping an 11-pitch at-bat — before Torres’ three-run homer off Brent Honeywell.

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

“As far as outcomes go, to have six guys in your cage that feel good and rested, I feel good about that,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.

Twenty-one of the previous 24 teams to take a 3–0 Series lead went on to sweeps, except for 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 these Series ended in five games.

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

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 is also 2 for 15 after going 1 for 4 with a single, his first hit since partially separating his left shoulder in Game 2.

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

Volpe was interviewed after the game by former Yankees captain Derek Jeter, now a Fox broadcaster.

“It’s my dream, but it was the dreams of all my friends, all my cousins, and probably my sister’s dream too. But winning the World Series came first. by far. Nothing else compares. So there is still a lot of work to do,” Volpe said.

Former Boston star David Ortiz, also a Fox commentator, gave Volpe a shirt.

“I have it in my locker,” Volpe said. ‘I can’t bear it. There’s his and Red Sox stuff on there.”

NEXT

Cole allowed one run over six-plus innings in the opener – Kiké Hernández hit a triple in the fifth when right fielder Juan Soto took a bad route and scored on Smith’s sacrifice fly. Flaherty gave up two runs in 5 1/3 innings, a two-run homer to Giancarlo Stanton.

——

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB