The Yankees’ decision to send Giancarlo Stanton was an ill-fated sign of desperation

NEW YORK — The floor has been moved and the chairs have been arranged. The tombstone has been chosen and the epitaph is almost complete:

Here are the New York Yankees who lost the 2024 World Series in …

Four games? Five?

All that remains is to finish the engraving after a 4-2 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 3 on Monday night at Yankee Stadium.

“We know our backs are against the wall,” Aaron Judge said.

The Yankees have dug themselves a 3-0 hole that might as well be six feet deep. No team before them has done what they are now going to do in the World Series. In fact, no team in their position has even forced a sixth game.

“Hopefully we can become this great story and shock the world,” manager Aaron Boone said.

An obituary for these Yankees could start in many ways, but the vision of Giancarlo Stanton thundering toward home plate in the fourth inning might be an appropriate place to begin. It wasn’t about whether it was the right call to send the lead-footed Stanton barreling around third base to try to score on Anthony Volpe’s single in the fourth inning down 3-0.

The problem was that the Yankees themselves had put themselves in that position in the first place.

“In that situation, two outs, you have to roll the dice on it,” Stanton said.

So far in the World Series, the Yankees have been outscored 14-7. During the regular season, New York’s offense – powered by Aaron Judge and Juan Soto – finished third in runs scored and first in home runs. But Judge is just 1-for-12 with seven strikeouts in the World Series and is in the midst of another abysmal October performance. The Yankees also couldn’t rely on the bottom of their lineup — Anthony Rizzo, Alex Verdugo and Jose Trevino — to drive in Stanton, even from third base.

So when Volpe’s liner zipped into shallow left field and landed in front of Teoscar Hernández, third base coach Luis Rojas started waving to Stanton to run home. Hernández has one of the strongest arms in baseball with an average velocity of 87.5 mph. But he’s also slow to get to most balls, and he’s not the most accurate either. One opposing scout said his club almost always runs Hernández when it has the chance, and the Yankees’ game plan was likely to do the same. The scout spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

But in Stanton, the Yankees had another problem. He is their slowest runner, constantly on cruise control as he tries to avoid the niggling leg injuries that have plagued him in recent years. All season he has run out of grounders with the urgency of a recreational jogger. He may be their most fragile player, yet he has been their best postseason hitter, with a team-best six home runs and 1.110 OPS in these playoffs. They didn’t want to see him try to light the afterburners, let alone slide into the home.

But that’s how desperate the Yankees were. Starting pitcher Clarke Schmidt had rallied from a 3-0 deficit, giving up a two-run shot in the first inning to Freddie Freeman and a third-inning RBI single to Mookie Betts before exiting after just 2 2/3 innings . His opponent, Walker Buehler, kept the Yankees’ bats down.

So the Yankees sent Stanton home, even if it was risky, and it backfired when Hernández made a perfect throw to catch him.

Boone condemned not sending Stanton, adding that he had to re-watch the video.

“We had to challenge Teoscar there a little bit, especially when he moves to the right,” Boone said. “Credit to him. He had a good throw. I thought ‘G’ had a pretty good jump and (moved well) around third base. Tough when you’re behind a few there. But a perfect throw is able to to get him there.”

Did Stanton feel he was sent because the Yankees’ offense needed any help it could get?

“I think that just in that place, you have to roll until you get something going,” he said. “Get going.”

Now it’s too late for the Yankees to get much going. Entering Game 4 on Tuesday, they are unwilling to start ace Gerrit Cole on short rest, opting instead for rookie Luis Gil, who has made just one other start this postseason.

They could win. But history says it wouldn’t matter, that they would fail sooner rather than later, and that the Dodgers would likely end up celebrating a title on their home field.

“In our minds, it’s winning a game,” Judge said. “This is how it starts. Even if we’re down 3-0, if we win one game, who knows what will happen the next couple.”

“We’re not where we want to be right now,” first baseman Rizzo said.

Except it’s no longer about where the Yankees want to be. It’s about how that epitaph ends.

Four games? Five?

(Top image of Stanton sliding into home: Luke Hales/Getty Images)