5 biggest storylines as Yanks try to keep chipping away in World Series G5

The baseball season continues! Thanks to a flagging Dodgers bullpen game, a fiery Bronx crowd and a night Anthony Volpe will remember for the rest of his life, the Yankees kept their season alive with an 11-4 win over the Dodgers in Game 4 of the World Series on Tuesday.

The Yankees are still down 3-1, so there’s a lot of work left to be done. But with one more win on Wednesday night, this series will head back to Chavez Ravine … and you’ll see some Angelenos start to sweat a little.

Here are the five biggest storylines heading into Game 5 at Yankee Stadium.

World Series Game 5: Dodgers at Yankees (LAD up 3-1)
8:08 p.m. ET, FOX
SP: Jack Flaherty (LAD) vs. Gerrit Cole (NYY)

1) Can Cole come through again?
Let’s face it. The Yankees should have won Game 1. This series should be tied! In that first game, Cole did exactly what the Yankees hoped he would do, back when they committed $324 million to him as a free agent before the 2020 season. He handed the bullpen the game with a lead and looked like the ace he has been most of his career. Now they simply need him to go out and do it again to keep their season alive.

The Yankees used their top bullpen arms on Tuesday to hold on to their lead, and while they’ll be available if needed on Wednesday – this is an elimination game – it’s asking a lot to expect them to shut down the Dodgers again. This is Cole’s game as long as he can take it. It’s on his shoulders. This is why he’s here.

2) Is Freddie Freeman going to homer again?
If the Dodgers do end up winning this series -- as is still pretty likely, considering they’re up 3-1 -- Freeman is obviously going to be the MVP. His two-run shot in the first inning of Game 4 marked his sixth consecutive World Series game with a home run (going back to 2021 with Atlanta), which is of course the all-time record.

Let us not forget that one of the primary storylines heading into this series concerned whether Freeman would even be available to play, and if so, if his sprained ankle would continue to hinder him. Instead, he’s blasting homers every night and even got down the line quickly to beat out a potential ground-ball double play to bring home another run in Game 4.

This is of particular import for the Dodgers because Shohei Ohtani, who did at least have a hit on Tuesday night, really does not look like himself this series. That shoulder is obviously bothering him; this has to be the most he has ever grimaced over a two-game span. The Dodgers may need Freeman to hit like Ohtani has all year. Fortunately, so far, he has been.

3) Is Aaron Judge about to break through?
Judge went 1-for-3 with a walk and a hit-by-pitch on Tuesday, so the 6,000-foot homer everybody assumes he has been building up to hasn’t happened yet. But look out: You can see him getting closer. He has been laying off those breaking balls outside that he’d been flailing at, and he’s starting to time up fastballs, including just missing one in his next-to-last at-bat in Game 4. He knocked an RBI single in the eighth, once again laying off bad pitches, and he is starting to look locked in. (He even stole a base!)

The homer is coming. If we’ve learned anything from watching Judge all these years, there may be more coming quickly afterward. The Dodgers should probably try to hurry up and finish off this series before Judge lights up. Because he’s about to.

4) Can Flaherty keep the Dodgers' rotation humming?
If you hadn’t paid attention to baseball for most of the regular season and just tuned into the World Series, you would think the Dodgers made it this far because they have the rotation of the ‘90s Braves. All three current L.A. rotation members -- Flaherty, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Walker Buehler -- have been excellent in this World Series. And, well, as we watched the Dodgers’ bullpen game blow up in their face in Game 4, it’s a good thing they have been.

When you take a step back and look at this series in total, it’s actually kind of remarkable that the Dodgers starters have turned out to be the reason they’re up 3-1; if those three hadn’t neutralized the Yankees’ starting pitching advantage we all presumed they had coming in, this series would be tied … or maybe the Dodgers would be behind?

Can Flaherty keep it going? He has been hot and cold this postseason, and in many ways his whole career. If the Dodgers get Good Flaherty, they could finish this off Wednesday. If they get Bad Flaherty, everyone may be heading back to Los Angeles for Game 6. The Dodgers came into the series just hoping their rotation could hold up. It has turned out to be their strength. They need it to remain so.

5) Can the Yankees build off this?
Volpe’s grand slam in Game 4 seemed to wake up not just Yankee Stadium, but really the whole team. They went from dejected to energized with one swing of the bat, and that energy seemed to build throughout the game. It culminated in a five-run eighth inning that not only allowed the Yankees to not send out Luke Weaver in the top of the ninth for a third inning of work, but it may have been the final push to get Judge, and honestly this whole offense, going.

After Freeman homered in the first, it did seem like the Yankees might just roll over and get swept. Instead, they ended up, as the night went on, slowly working themselves back into shape. This Yankees team already looks different than it did on Monday night. Can they do it one more time and send everybody west for the weekend?