‘Real’ Buehler helps put Dodgers on cusp of title

NEW YORK — Walker Buehler pitched five scoreless innings, Freddie Freeman belted a two-run homer and the Los Angeles Dodgers continued to act like the deeper, better, more sound team in this World Series, beating the New York Yankees 4-2 on Monday night to take a commanding three-games-to-none lead. Now, to somehow win it all, the Yankees will have to become the second team ever — after the Boston Red Sox in the 2004 American League Championship Series — to win four consecutive games with their season on the line in a best-of-seven series.

The Dodgers applied the pressure immediately. Shohei Ohtani, playing through a slightly dislocated left shoulder, drew a four-pitch walk to start the game. Two batters later, Freeman, playing through his own set of injuries throughout October, lined a two-run homer into the short porch in right field. It was Freeman’s third home run in a stretch of six at-bats, immediately after going 32 consecutive postseason at-bats without so much as an extra-base hit. A sold-out Yankee Stadium fell silent — and Buehler kept it that way.

Buehler allowed just two hits and two walks while striking out five, generating six swings and misses on his fastball — his most since 2021. The 2024 season had been a struggle for Buehler. He returned from a second Tommy John surgery without his overpowering fastball, struggled through a 5.38 ERA in 16 regular-season starts, dealt with a hip injury midway through it and constantly had to reinvent himself along the way. But Buehler found an effective curveball while throwing four scoreless innings against the New York Mets in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series and finally got his lively fastball back in the World Series, a stage where he has dominated.

The Yankees had a chance to score in the fourth, when Anthony Volpe lined a two-out single to left field, but Giancarlo Stanton was thrown out trying to score from second base. Teoscar Hernandez made a perfect one-hop throw to nail Stanton, who is among the slowest players in the sport. Just before that, Mookie Betts made a sprawling catch in right field to rob Jazz Chisholm Jr. Two innings later, Tommy Edman, who had made a perfect read to score on Betts’ base hit in the third inning, stretched to record a force out at second base.

The Dodgers — plagued by injuries to their starting pitchers throughout the regular season — now have five shutouts in these playoffs, tied with the then-Cleveland Indians of 2016 for the most in a single postseason. The Yankees were last shut out in the World Series during Game 6 in 2003, when the then-Florida Marlins clinched a title behind Josh Beckett’s complete-game masterpiece. The Dodgers, who haven’t won a full-season title since 1988, are one win away from doing the same.

The Yankees made one last gasp at the very end, when Alex Verdugo lined a two-run homer off Michael Kopech with two outs in the bottom of the ninth to cut the deficit in half. But Kopech came back to retire Gleyber Torres on a slow groundout. The Dodgers — plagued by injuries to their starting pitchers throughout the regular season, navigating through ill-timed injuries to Freeman and Ohtani in October — are now one win away from their first championship in four years and their first full-season title since 1988.