Anthony Volpe hustle, Gleyber Torres save Yankees' season (and Luke Weaver's arm)

You really want to know how miraculous Game 4 of the World Series was for the New York Yankees? Even the contact play worked, for what feels like the first time all year.

With their backs against the wall and their eulogies already prewritten, the Yankees saw the tarps raised a little higher in the visitor's clubhouse when Freddie Freeman socked a home run in his fourth straight game in the first inning. If the Yankees wanted to stave off elimination, they needed to score first. They didn't do that. Just another gut punch.

And yet ... Anthony Volpe, in need of immediate redemption after tagging up on an Austin Wells shot off the wall and potentially taking a run off the board (by preventing Wells from tripling), flipped a 2-1 deficit into a 5-2 lead with a two-out grand slam in the third.

The Dodgers rallied, with Freeman -- that absolute rascal -- somehow beating out a likely Tim Hill double play ball on one foot, making it 5-4 in the fifth. But an Austin Wells homer gave the Yankees one more run of breathing room, and Luke Weaver seemed destined to be left out on the mound to cover seven outs (or die trying).

He dispatched of Mookie Betts to end the seventh. He knifed through Freeman, Teoscar Hernández and Max Muncy in the eighth. And he was poised to toe the rubber in the ninth, effectively knocking him out for Game 5 -- but those are the kinds of chances you must take in case Game 5 never came.

Somehow, for the fifth, sixth or seventh time in this absurd game, something amazing happened. Volpe ripped a liner, hustled for a double, was tagged out ... and knocked the ball out of Tommy Edman's glove on the slide, showing the fans who messed with Mookie Betts proper form.

Wells worked a walk, both men pulled off a double steal, and Alex Verdugo -- no, seriously, this happened -- pulled off an all-time lengthy at-bat, eventually mashing a semi-hot grounder directly to second base. Volpe scampered for home. Contact play. Always fails. Except...

Yankees blow out Dodgers bullpen in wild eighth inning rally in The Anthony Volpe Game (Game 4 of World Series)

From that point forward, another player who doesn't want his Yankees career to end made a statement. Gleyber Torres mashed a three-run homer in what otherwise might've been his final at-bat in pinstripes. Juan Soto doubled. Aaron Judge, given an extra at-bat to get right, knocked him in with a single.

And, after all of that, Tim Mayza finished the ninth 1-2-3, opening the door for more Dreams to be Weaved in Game 5.

The best the Yankees could've hoped for tonight was, "Being alive." Now? They're alive with a bit of a vengeance, and a ticking heartbeat to boot.