The Los Angeles Dodgers have an advantage in nearly every way over the New York Yankees in the 2024 World Series. The advantage in most cases is very small. If the Dodgers do not do the little things, they give the Yankees -a very talented team- something dangerous: hope. After a dream scenario played out in the first three games of the 2024 World Series, the Dodgers were poised to make a clean sweep.

The sweep was not to be.

Thanks to a dogpile of missteps, the Yankees posted 11 runs in a drubbing of the Dodgers, making the series 3-1. What should be really scary for the Dodgers is those missteps helped cost them a game, but in several ways awoke key cogs in the Yankees offensive machine.

The Dodgers started off well. Freddie Freeman continued his postseason hit parade with a two-run home run. Dodgers were up 2-0. In the second inning, New York scored a run. Then, Anthony Volpe hit a grand slam off of Daniel Hudson. 5-2 Yankees.

He should not have had the chance.

Hudson had just hit Giancarlo Stanton. Stanton was ruled to have swung at the pitch, but then walked. Aaron Judge had been hit before that. Jazz Chisolm had seen an inexplicable fastball in the inner third of the plate and smoked it to left. Simply put, Hudson didn’t have it.

Manager Dave Roberts tried to get length out of the bullpen instead of immediate outs. It’s Game 4 of the World Series, for goodness sake. When a reliever can not find the plate when facing three consecutive batters, he has to go. Period. There was absolutely no reason to not pull Hudson. Volpe proved that, hitting a rare strike from Hudson into the bleachers for a grand slam. 5-2 Yankees.

Tommy Edman flubbed a routine groundball to shortstop. Kike Hernandez turned his head away from the ball on a play at the fence in center field.

Roberts leaves Landon Knack in to face three lefty batters to start the sixth inning. Austin Wells put one in the seats to make it 6-4 Yankees. This begged the question, was Roberts trying to win Game 4 or Game 5?

Later, a 13-pitch at-bat by Alex Verdugo against Brent Honeywell made it pretty obvious that Honeywell was not fooling him. Verdugo would win the battle and the war after grounding a ball with decent pace to Gavin Lux. Lux went home in plenty of time, but the throw was up the first base line. Volpe was safe. 7-4.

It didn’t get better from there. In fact, it may have gotten seriously worse for L.A. Centerfielder Aaron Judge, the likely Most Valuable Player of the American League, put together a terrific at-bat and ended up with a hit. He made decent contact two other times.

in the end, 11-4 is not the least of L.A.’s problems. Sloppy play and Aaron Judge coming out of a slump are. Gerrit Cole making a second substandard start also does not seem likely. The Dodgers still have three games to win one, but they made it a lot more difficult than it needed to be.