The Yankees have a simple problem in this World Series. Everything they do well, the Dodgers do better – power, patience, pitching.

And then there’s so much the Yankees don’t do well, from running the bases to executing on defense, which Los Angeles also excels at.

Heck, the Dodgers even have an advantage in areas like a much louder home crowd, a deeper bench, and a better pregame rap performance – Ice Cube over Fat Joe.

It sounds like a mismatch, and so far the 120th World Series is exactly that. The Yankees have waited 15 years to play in the World Series, and with each game that passes, it’s like they were never here . At this point, a CSI team is needed to search for fingerprints and DNA.

Game 1 was a classic that the Yankees squandered from their defense to Aaron Boone’s decision making. And since Freddie Freeman’s grand slam clinched that win in the 10th inning, the Yankees had no lead and were lifeless on offense.

I’m not sure you can be overwhelmed with a final score of 4-2 – but that’s how Game 2 and now Game 3 played out. The starting advantage the Yankees were supposed to have hasn’t materialized, particularly in the last two games, when first Carlos Rodon and then Clarke Schmidt put the Yankees on the backfoot while Dodgers starters Yoshinobu Yamamoto and then Walker Buehler joined in on Monday night With a change of season, pitching began to suffocate.

In both games, the Yankees’ offense slept for eight innings and woke up in the ninth inning to cosmetically produce a tight final score that did not reflect the reality on the field in a series in which the Dodgers now lead three games to zero.

“Extremely tough,” said Alex Verdugo, whose two-run, two-out ninth-inning home run set the Yankee score. “They are one win away and we are four wins away. Of course you can expect that. It’s going to be tough.”

It’s hard on steroids. Maybe you can convince someone dumb or dumber that the Yankees have a chance, because once in 40 tries, when a team was down 3-0 in an MLB postseason series, they actually won. That was the 2004 Red Sox, whose comeback against the Yankees was fueled by a stolen base in Game 4 by current Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. But David Ortiz isn’t leaving the FOX pregame set through the doors of the Yankees’ clubhouse.

“Obviously not where we want to be right now,” Anthony Rizzo said. “It stinks. It definitely stinks.”

It already feels like a Whitey Ford when the preview for this series was an evenly matched seven-game duel of coastal superpowers.

Instead, Freeman has the Yankees tied at 3-3 in home runs, and Los Angeles leads 5-3 overall in the one category the Yankees must win to hide mistakes elsewhere. Another strength of the Yankees is plate discipline, but it is the Dodgers who grind Yankee pitchers and turn their first two walks into runs. Shohei Ohtani, playing somewhat cautiously 48 hours after he dislocated his shoulder according to the Dodgers report, walked to open the game and finished ahead of Schmidt on a home run by Freeman.

Tommy Edman drew a walk to lead off the third at bat against Schmidt, who did not last the inning. He then created a run through legs and baseball IQ that was generally alien to the Yankees. He ran and took second after Ohtani’s groundout. Then he immediately knew that Mookie Betts’ looper would fall to the right side and scored easily. Gavin Lux stole a base in the sixth inning and positioned himself to take a 4-0 lead on Enrique Hernandez’s signal.

The Yanks are now the worst baserunning team in the majors. Stanton, as successful as Babe Ruth this month, is still running like he’s carrying the franchise’s burden. On a two-out single to left by Anthony Volpe that scored the most runners, Stanton was thrown to the plate by Teoscar Hernandez.

Rodon and Schmidt combined for six innings and allowed seven runs in Games 2 and 3, while Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Walker Buehler combined for 11 ¹/₃ and one run.

“Maybe at the beginning of this series we thought we were equal or better than them,” Nestor Cortes said. “And obviously those three games didn’t go our way.”

And yet the Yankees could get a win or two or even three if Aaron Judge hit. But he was 0 for 3 and fell to 1 for 12 with one run with seven strikeouts in this World Series, 6 for 43 (.140) this postseason and 42 for 214 (.196) in his career postseason. Judge hasn’t hit in his last two World Series games, and the Yanks are 17-34 (including the postseason) when Judge doesn’t hit in a game.

The two MVPs don’t shine quite equally with this story. The Yankees often go like Judge – and Judge went poorly in October(s). The Dodgers once again unplugged him and the souls and voices of the 49,368 spectators of the first World Series game in the Bronx since November 4, 2009.

“Hopefully we can tell this amazing story and shock the world,” Boone said. “But right now it’s about getting a lead, winning a game and forcing another and then go from there.”

This feels like an impossible mountain to climb when you don’t do anything better than your opponent.