Karmically speaking, neither team deserves a championship, although that feeling is especially true this year. Neither the Dodgers nor the Yankees score high on the moral scale of historical suffering, but on paper they can make up for it by promising entertainment to the masses: a star-studded Super vs. Star match. What then should we make of the fact that one of the supposed powerhouses currently resembles not just an ant, but one of those species of ants whose primary defense mechanism literally explodes?

After trailing 2-0 to the Dodgers to open the World Series, the Yankees played their first game at home, making their eventual 4-2 loss feel like a bust. Now, according to the laws of arithmetic, the Yankees are down 3-0. The sweep alarm goes off! The spaceship is heading straight into the sun! The Dodgers continued to find postseason success from relatively unexpected quarters. The FOX “Three Batters Away”-style chyrons for Shohei Ohtani (though they were also used for other stars like Juan Soto and Bryce Harper) didn’t pay off even before people started taking slow-motion videos of Ohtani’s backpacks moving. Then again, it wasn’t necessary for the Dodgers. After all: Freddie Freeman.

While Freeman’s heroics would have to be described as “unexpected” in the context of his broader career, the man had an injured ankle and no extra-base hits in the first two rounds of the playoffs. The expectations were low, without any real fault on his part. What that analysis didn’t take into account was that Freeman would simply transform into a home run-hitting machine – there’s no need to walk on a bad ankle when doing a leisurely home run trot. (Freeman said in the interview immediately after the game that the days off before the series gave him time to recover and practice his swing. Another win for the well-rested Lobby.)

Freeman’s home run in the first inning snapped his streak of five straight games with a home run in the World Series, continuing a two-game streak from his time with the Atlanta Braves. Together with the Dodgers pitching staff, he put the game out of reach in the first inning: after the home run, the only thing left to know was whether Walker Buehler had the lead that night. He did it.

None of these facts are inexplicable. This is what a well put together team does when it clicks enough. But they still fall under the mild label of “unexpected.” The Dodgers have found three reliable starters despite entering the postseason with one and a half and another half, more or less half a starter. After TJ surgery, Buehler had a difficult regular season; Yoshinobu Yamamoto put in a mixed but impressive performance, although he was also plagued by injuries. It adds an eerie effect to the Dodgers’ 3-0 lead in the series, even if that lead is hardly undeserved. I guess Tommy Edman can be on base 90 percent of the time, but a 3-0 lead without an Ohtani home run? And on that topic: a Yankees World Series without an Aaron Judge home run?

Judge has reached the unfortunate point in this series where putting the ball in play is a good sign and a walk is a great sign. After last night’s game, he has seven strikeouts and one hit in twelve at-bats, the numbers made worse by the fact that Juan Soto is often on base in those at-bats. It’s a typical cold streak at the wrong time, and with the current score at 3-0, Judge has little time to turn things around. Not that it’s all his fault. If Mark Leiter Jr. is out in the third inning, something else has gone terribly wrong; When Freddie Freeman’s crabmeat partner Giancarlo Stanton is sent third to reach the final at home, everything falls apart horribly.

A victory of sorts for the Yankees is that they managed to keep Game 3 close enough to allow Michael Kopech to leave in the ninth inning. One loss for the Yankees is that the possibility of a comeback was never real despite Alex Verdugo’s two-run short-porch home run and attempt to recapture the mood in the bottom of the ninth. Verdugo’s home run got two outs, and Gleyber Torres singled, losing the game. And thus a 4:2 balance.

While it would be unfair to hold every single game in the series to the standard set by the first, it would be nice if the Yankees at least fought back. Game 4 will be their best chance to accomplish that: Despite fielding three starters, the Dodgers have failed to conjure up a fourth and will shut out the bullpen for Game 4. There are some caveats. The loss of familiarity among relievers is real, although there are varying explanations for the cause; Even in that regard, Dave Roberts has done a good job of distributing his relief staff. Two of the Dodgers’ bullpen best, Anthony Banda and Alex Vesia, haven’t even seen the Soto-Judge-Stanton triad in this series, but they, along with Kopech, have pitched in all three games so far.

And if the Dodgers win the bullpen for Game 4, the moral crown certainly won’t be theirs. No matter what you think about the Dodgers or Yankees, it should be illegal for a team to win a World Series ring after a bullpen game. In this sense, the Yankees are temporarily the moral representatives of Major League Baseball. Doesn’t that feel good?