Maybe Austin Wells was overdue for a big hit – or any kind of hit. Perhaps Aaron Boone was endowed by his family history in the game with a kind of baseball-specific power of prophecy. Maybe the manager just trusted his man.

Or maybe that’s how baseball goes sometimes.

Whatever the reason, Wells asserted himself Tuesday night, returning to the lineup and helping spark the Yankees’ 11-4 victory over the Dodgers in Game 4 of the World Series with an offensive effort as complete as he has done it for months: 2-for-3 with a double over the center field wall, a home run into the second deck in right field, a walk, a stolen base and two runs scored.

All this happened a day after Boone benched him in favor of Jose Trevino, but insisted: “I still maintain that I have a lot of confidence in Austin, that he’s going to have a big stick to us, the right stick for us. .”

And that’s what Wells did – several times, in fact, as the Yankees survived to play another day.

“I just tried to slow down and have fun,” the receiver said. “I didn’t put too much pressure on any pitch, any count, any at-bats. So I just went up there and tried to get a good swing and really slow it down.

This was part of what Wells described as an overarching theme for the Yankees, that they “just kind of needed to say ‘(forget) it’ and get after it.” They still trail the Dodgers, 3-1, in the best-of-seven series, but the way Wells sees it, the burden is on the Dodgers.

“(Monday) night, I feel like all the pressure was kind of gone, at least for me personally,” Wells said. “We were down 3-0 and it felt like the pressure was on them to win the last game. It gave me a bit of a pressure release.

Seemingly under no pressure, Wells struck in the second half with the Yankees already trailing by a pair. He threw Ben Casparius’ fastball about 406 feet to center, injecting the 49,354 spectators at Yankee Stadium with a well-deserved burst of energy. Anthony Volpe failed to score from second on the double, but came in on Alex Verdugo’s subsequent groundout.

When Wells entered the game in the sixth, with the Yankees clinging to a one-run lead, he threw another high fastball, this one from Landon Knack, to right.

“It was great to be able to contribute with the bat,” Wells said.

He hadn’t done much lately. After earning time at the mop-up site during a scorching summer, Wells slumped severely in September, hitting .111 with a .217 OBP and a .194 slugging percentage.

This continued in the playoffs. He entered Tuesday with a line of 4 for 43, as many hits as ground balls into double plays.

Of course, a good night’s sleep doesn’t necessarily mean he’s over his crisis. In the ALCS against the Guardians, he appeared in Game 3 and homered in Game 4, then went 1 for 16 with seven strikeouts until this perhaps breakout.

But it’s a start. The fact that it happened in a game highlighted by a grand slam from Volpe, his close friend and minor league contemporary, made it even better.

“It’s not really a friendship anymore. It’s a brotherhood. We went through all of this together,” Volpe said. “I know he has my back through thick and thin. To have a moment like that, for him to have a moment like that is special, but to do it together, you can’t trade it for anything.

Tim Healey is the Mets writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about Northeast minor league baseball.