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Jorge Castillo, ESPN Staff Writer
NEW YORK — For about two hours Tuesday night, the most surreal moment in Anthony Volpe‘s life happened in the third inning of Game 4 of the World Series.
The New York Yankees‘ homegrown shortstop in every sense, a lifelong Yankees fan who lived on the Upper East Side before his family moved across the Hudson to New Jersey when he was in the fourth grade, supplied his club with the oxygen it needed while facing elimination.
It came in the form of a grand slam off Los Angeles Dodgers reliever Daniel Hudson — a 107.6 mph missile that landed a few rows beyond the left-field wall at Yankee Stadium — that gave the Yankees a lead they wouldn’t relinquish in an 11-4 rout to cut their series deficit to 3-1. Fifteen years after attending the Yankees’ last World Series parade in 2009, back when he was 8 years old and his teeth were less straight, he was on the field starring in pinstripes in the World Series.
Nothing could top it. And then, about two hours later, something did.
“VOL-PE! VOL-PE! VOL-PE!”
The chants originated with the Bleacher Creatures before spreading to the rest of the building with one out in the ninth inning. They echoed while Volpe stood at shortstop. That moment, he said, surpassed the grand slam.
“No. 1,” Volpe said. “Definitely No. 1.”
The Yankees were desperate for a breakthrough blast after scoring seven runs in the first three games of this clash of coastal titans. They failed to capitalize on scoring opportunities in the three losses, pushing themselves to the brink after having not held a lead since Nestor Cortes surrendered the walk-off grand slam in Game 1.
It looked like it would be more of the same early Tuesday, when Freddie Freeman swatted a laser over the short porch in right field for a two-run homer, extending his streak of World Series games with a home run to a record six. The swing deflated the sellout crowd. The Yankees then wasted two scoring opportunities in the first two innings. The script was familiar.
The Yankees left two runners stranded in the first inning. Then in the second, Volpe’s decision to tag up on a ball Austin Wells hit off the wall in center field might have cost a run. Instead of Wells legging out a triple, Volpe advanced just 90 feet and Wells settled for a double. Alex Verdugo scored Volpe on a groundout, but that was the only run the Yankees produced.
“That’s completely on me,” said Volpe, who finished 2-for-4 with a walk and three runs scored. “It’s not a hard read, one we practice, one that Little Leaguers make.”
Volpe avenged his blunder with the most important swing of his life in the third inning. Hudson, the second reliever the Dodgers deployed for their scheduled bullpen day, hit Aaron Judge with a pitch, yielded a single to Jazz Chisholm Jr. and walked Giancarlo Stanton to load the bases. After Anthony Rizzo popped out, Volpe came to the plate with two outs looking for a fastball. But he recognized the spin on Hudson’s slider after striking out against him in Game 3 and pounced, igniting the building and altering the trajectory of the series.
“I think I pretty much blacked out as soon as I saw it go over the fence,” Volpe said.
It was the Yankees shortstop’s first career postseason home run and the first World Series grand slam by a Yankee since Tino Martinez blasted one in Game 1 in 1998 against the San Diego Padres. Volpe, at 23 years and 184 days old, became the youngest Yankee with a grand slam in the World Series since Mickey Mantle in 1953.
“One thing about us is we love history and we love to make history. So, for us, we’re out here trying to make history right now.”
Jazz Chisholm Jr.
“That big hit, we’ve been looking for it,” Verdugo said. “It happened and it just felt like a big exhale in the dugout, and everybody could play and free easy again, and just worry about adding on and keeping the lead.”
The Dodgers sliced the lead to one with two runs, both charged to Luis Gil, in the fifth inning, but New York’s bullpen stymied them from there. Five Yankees relievers held L.A. without a hit over the final four innings while the offense worked against the Dodgers’ slew of relievers.
Wells, who entered the night 4-for-43 with 19 strikeouts in the postseason, crushed a solo home run to the upper deck in the sixth inning. Two innings later, the Yankees finally busted the game open with a five-run outburst, fueled by Gleyber Torres‘ three-run home run, while forcing Dodgers right-hander Brent Honeywell to throw 50 pitches.
The cushion allowed Yankees manager Aaron Boone to not use Luke Weaver, the team’s best reliever, for the ninth inning after the right-hander tossed 1⅓ innings, which should make Weaver available in Game 5 when the Yankees will attempt to become the first team to ever force a Game 6 after trailing 3-0 in a World Series.
“One thing about us is we love history and we love to make history,” Chisholm said. “So, for us, we’re out here trying to make history right now.”
The Yankees still have a shot to author history, to become the second team to ever dig out from a 3-0 hole in a postseason series, because of Volpe’s swing in the third inning.
To that point, Volpe was 1-for-12 with two walks and seven strikeouts in the World Series, regressing from his strong start to the playoffs. After slashing .243/.293/.657 during the regular season, the second-year shortstop batted .310 with an .804 OPS through the American League Championship Series. He was swinging harder than he did during the regular season and walking more — eight walks in 37 plate appearances. He attributed the improvement to his work during the Yankees’ four off days between the regular season and the start of the AL Division Series.
On Tuesday, the effort produced an outing he envisioned “probably every night” growing up with two moments he will never forget.
“It is pretty crazy to think about,” Volpe said. “It’s my dream, but it was all my friends’ dreams, all my cousins’ dreams, probably my sister’s dream too. But winning the World Series was first and foremost by far. Nothing else compares. So, we still got a lot of work to do.”