Anthony Volpe is fulfilling a childhood dream of reviving the Yankees’ World Series hopes

How many times has an elementary school Anthony Volpe dreamed of this moment, as he lay in his childhood bed, an hour southwest of Yankee Stadium, with Yankees posters on the walls, a Yankees mailbox at the end of the driveway, a Yankees game on the radio? How many times had he imagined himself striding to the plate in a World Series game, with two outs, bases loaded, one loss away in the winter, and coming through, hitting a ball into the left field stands?

He grins. “Probably every night,” he says.

Volpe, 23, couldn’t imagine what would happen next. In the ninth inning, the New York Yankees’ dormant offense had finally woken up enough to provide an 11-4 lead, a lead so secure that the 49,354 fans rocking the stands spent the top of the ninth chanted name.

One of the coolest moments of his life, he says, is “Number One.” Definitely number one.”

BACCELLIERI: World Series Game 4 Takeaways: Yankees roar back to life behind Volpe’s Grand Slam

Three hours earlier, the Yankees seemed to be living a nightmare. They had lost the first three games of the World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers in defeats that were belied by their close scores. The Dodgers had them beat on every corner of the diamond: Los Angeles hitters hit more home runs, stranded fewer runners and ran the bases better. Los Angeles fielders turned more balls into outs. The starting pitchers from Los Angeles went deeper into the games and the relievers from Los Angeles allowed fewer runs.

For two innings, Game 4 seemed to be more of the same. In the first, Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman hit his daily home run to put LA up 2-0. (That’s four for the series and, dating back to 2021, six in six consecutive World Series games, a Major League record.) Before Tuesday, the Dodgers were 8-1 this postseason when scoring first. In the regular season, that mark was 68–15, the best in the majors. In the second, the Yankees started their daily boner. With one out, Volpe walked and stole second base. Up came catcher Austin Wells, who doubled off the center field wall. But Volpe, thinking the ball would be caught, only reached third base. He slapped his thigh in frustration and grimaced.

“That’s entirely up to me,” he says. “It’s not a difficult book, a lesson we practice, a lesson Little Leaguers create.”

Then something surprising happened: the next batter, in this case Alex Verdugo, pushed him home with a grounder to the right side. Through the first three games, the Yankees had put 13 men in scoring position. Only two had come home, one on a home run and one on a misplay by Dodgers shortstop Tommy Edman.

But on Tuesday, the Yankees played good at bats. The Dodgers, devastated by pitching injuries, had to resort to their fourth bullpen game of the playoffs.

Opener Ben Casparius threw two frames, and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts called up righty Daniel Hudson for the heart of the order in the third. He struck out right fielder Juan Soto, but hit center fielder Aaron Judge with a four-seamer. Third baseman Jazz Chisholm singled and DH Giancarlo Stanton, down 1-2, walked. First baseman Anthony Rizzo hit a pop stop to the shortstop. Volpe walked to the plate more confidently than you might expect.

His team trailed 3-0, a Fall Classic deficit from which no club has ever recovered. He had just made a stupid mistake at a crucial moment. And after dominating the American League Championship Series, he had just one hit in the first three games of the World Series.

But he says he flushed all that. And the rest of the Yankees have maintained all week that his approach has been a good one. “He’s just completely locked in,” Rizzo says. “Easy swing.” Even his foul balls, Rizzo says, indicate he’s timing the pitchers well.

“He’s definitely hit better than his numbers indicate,” Boone said. “I think anyone who’s watched all of our games, you’ll see that his at-bats in and out have been excellent.”

Volpe had seen Hudson the night before; the righty had him out on a slider, followed by six fastballs. Volpe wasn’t exactly on a slider, he says, but he had an idea that one might be coming. He picked up a flat one and hit it.

“I think I pretty much blacked out as soon as I saw him go over the fence,” he says.

In some ways, Volpe is still the 8-year-old who attended the 2009 World Series parade, crushed between a metal barrier and a Duane Reade, hoping to catch a glimpse of Derek Jeter. In his locker at Yankee Stadium is a bat decorated like a slice of pizza, an Eli Manning New York Giants bobblehead and its dirty spikes. Rizzo, 35, calls him “polite” and “respectful.”

Volpe’s love for the Yankees goes back generations. His grandfather, also named Anthony, was only four when his father went off to fight in World War II. When the older man returned three years later, his son did not recognize him.

“The way he met his dad was he would sit on his lap every night and listen to the Yankees together,” the shortstop said. “So for him it is more than just sport.”

It felt like more than sports for the sold-out crowd at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday, especially after a pathetic loss in Game 3 gave them little to cheer about. But they erupted when Volpe did.

“I literally felt the ground shaking,” Wells says. “These fans expect wins, and when you have a big home run like that to kind of light the team on fire, like Volpe did, he got some well-deserved praise there.”

He got more later, when his one-out double produced an eighth-inning outburst that produced five runs and allowed closer Luke Weaver, who had collected four outs against the core of the Dodgers order, to sit out the ninth. Volpe and Wells, who walked, executed a double steal, and Volpe, who went into contact, scored when Verdugo grounded up the middle. LA second baseman Gavin Lux threw home; Volpe slipped before the tap. The streak made him the first player in World Series history to collect four RBIs and two stolen bases in a game.

“Anthony’s jump there, a little tack-on-run, now they’re going home, they’re not coming out,” Boone said. “It’s the little things that happen there that turn into big things.”

Second baseman Gleyber Torres followed with a three-run homer to put the game out of reach.

“Just a nice job to continue with that,” says Boone. “It allowed me to get Weave out of there that last inning because I was going to go with him – if we’re up two, three there, I’m going to stay with him, which puts him in danger going in tomorrow. ”

Oh well, tomorrow. Game 4 was a big game, but it was only one game. If the Yankees are lucky, three more elimination games await. New York will send top player Gerrit Cole to the mound; the Dodgers will counter with Jack Flaherty. And with Game 4 spiraling out of control, LA was able to rest all of its high-leverage relievers — and prevent the Yankees from taking another look at them. The odds remain in the Dodgers’ favor. No team down 3-0 in the World Series has even forced a Game 6. But the Yankees can’t think that way. They should try to win just one game. And they will sleep well tonight.