Game 3 of the World Series was a “must-win game” for the Yankees in the sense that there is extremely minimal success in the history of baseball when trailing a series three games to none. If they had beaten the Dodgers, a 2-1 series deficit with the next two games at home as well at least offered a narrow path to victory. But they failed.

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So now, Game 4 has turned to a literal must-win. The 2024 MLB season ends tonight in a humiliating-but-deserved sweep if the Yankees can’t beat the Dodgers’ planned bullpen game behind likely-brief starter Ben Casparius. The New York lineup has been released, and here’s who will try to save the Yankees’ season.

2B Gleyber Torres
RF Juan Soto
CF Aaron Judge
3B Jazz Chisholm Jr.
DH Giancarlo Stanton
SS Anthony Volpe
1B Anthony Rizzo
C Austin Wells
LF Alex Verdugo

We certainly didn’t expect any changes at this point, simply because the Yankees have shown no indication of having any possible answers in a swap, let alone interest. Manager Aaron Boone is determined to go down with the ship with his guys, and they’re basically all in there. Wells returns behind the plate after the Yanks decided to give Jose Trevino a whirl with the rookie in a horrific 8-for-72 slump (.111) since the start of September. Trevino didn’t fare any better, so Wells is back.

Chisholm is also at cleanup, swapping places with Stanton in what is surely just a move to break up righties and lefties given the Dodgers mostly deploying a matchups-based bullpen game. Stanton has obviously played better and if anything has a better case to move up in the lineup, but Boone said before Game 3 that Judge would not be moving. It’s all rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic if Judge can’t hit anyway since he would be coming up in a crucial spot at some point. You can put these nine guys in any order you want; it’s hard to get bogged down with sequencing concerns when essentially no one is hitting outside of Soto and Stanton.

There are no easy answers. Just hit some of these random Dodgers and try to save the season with Gerrit Cole waiting in the wings for a possible Game 5. It’s a fool’s hope, but here we are.