Takeaways from World Series Game 3: The Dodgers take a 3-0 lead over the Yankees

Moving Game 3 of the 2024 World Series to Yankee Stadium hasn't slowed down the Los Angeles Dodgers one bit.

Freddie Freeman got LA going with a home run for the third straight game, and Walker Buehler and the Dodgers' bullpen worked together to quiet the New York Yankees' offense.

How did the Dodgers bring the Yankees to the brink of elimination, and is there still hope for the home team in Game 4? We've covered everything from updates and analysis during games to insights after the final pitch and next steps for each team.

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Takeaways

Los Angeles Dodgers 4, New York Yankees 2

Dodgers: The Yankees should have the starting advantage in this series. The Dodgers completely obliterated it. Walker Buehler threw five scoreless innings in Game 3 on Monday night – after Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed just one run in 6⅓ innings in Game 2 and Jack Flaherty allowed two runs in 5⅓ innings in Game 1. The three have combined for a 1.62 ERA, the lowest by a team's first three starters in the World Series since Cleveland in 2016.

Of the three, Bühler was probably the most insecure. He returned from a second Tommy John surgery midway through the year, struggled in 16 regular-season starts, posting a 5.38 ERA, and appeared to have lost his all-powerful fastball.

But he found an effective curveball against the New York Mets in the National League Championship Series and finally got his lively fastball back on Monday night. The Dodgers are now just one win away from their first championship in four years and their first full-season title since 1988. At the most critical moment, starting pitching has gone from being the Dodgers' greatest uncertainty to one of their greatest strengths. And their biggest concern, the overall health of first baseman and No. 3 hitter Freddie Freeman, no longer appears to be a single concern at all. –Alden Gonzalez

Yankees: The Yankees are facing a 3-0 series deficit because their offense, led by their presumptive American League MVP, has disappeared. On Monday, New York produced four hits, five walks and boos from the home crowd. Giancarlo Stanton went 2 of 4; The rest of the team finished the game 3-for-27. Aaron Judge went 0-for-3 with one strikeout and one walk and increased his series record to 1-for-12 with seven strikeouts. Stanton's double in the fourth inning Monday was New York's only extra-base hit. The Yankees went 1-for-4 with runners in scoring position and left eight runners on base. Their rallies ended with a questionable send (Stanton was thrown out at home in the fourth inning) and a questionable strike three call (Gleyber Torres made a pitch above the strike zone with two runners on base in the seventh inning). One thing is certain: the Yankees, who managed to score seven runs in this series, will have another quiet night before they are overwhelmed. –Jorge Castillo

The big question for Game 4: Will this really be a lot of fun? While the oddsmakers favored the Dodgers in this series, the odds were by a slight margin and the evaluators saw it as close to a coin toss. After three games, the Dodgers have shut out the Yankees' hitters so thoroughly that victory in Los Angeles seems inevitable.

Entering this series, MLB teams took a 3-0 lead 40 times. Thirty-one of them ended in a sweep. The Yankees can only hope that Luis Gil shows up and pitches better than Carlos Rodón and Clarke Schmidt did in Games 2 and 3. And even then, considering how New York's offense performed in this series, there's a chance that Los Angeles playing with an all-bullpen Tuesday's game doesn't seem to be too detrimental.

The only baseball team to ever come back from a 3-0 deficit in a best-of-seven series is the 2004 Boston Red Sox against the Yankees. New York needs a miracle at this point. The way the Yankees are playing, it's hard to imagine what that looks like. –Jeff Passan

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