The Yankees never uttered the words publicly when asked about which team they most preferred to avoid for the Wild Card Series. After brawling their way back to the brink of the AL East title, and surging through September, the defending AL champs wouldn’t admit to fearing anyone.
But everyone understood the all-too-familiar danger lurking close by in the same division, the bitter age-old rival up in Boston, spearheaded by one of the game’s most lethal lefthanders, Garret Crochet.
Just what the Yankees didn’t need — another band of rowdy Red Sox overachievers, managed by their chief pinstripe antagonist, Alex Cora.
And Tuesday night’s Game 1 turned out to be everything that Aaron Boone & Co. dreaded about this legitimately scary matchup. From Crochet’s dominant playoff Picasso to Cora’s nifty deployment of pinch-hitter Masataka Yoshida for the go-ahead seventh-inning single to former Astros’ nemesis Alex Bregman adding an insurance RBI double in the ninth that cemented the Yankees’ 3-1 loss to the Red Sox.
For the record, Boston is now 9-1 in their last 10 playoff games against the Yankees, with six of those wins decided by two runs or fewer. Those tight margins are a hat tip to Cora’s managerial brilliance, which was on display again Tuesday night, as he seemed to stay one step ahead of his Yankees counterpart and even stuck with Crochet (7 2⁄3 IP, 11 Ks) for 117 pitches, five beyond his regular-season max, to outduel Max Fried (6 1⁄3 IP, 6 Ks).
“They’re a great team up and down the lineup,” said Aaron Judge, who had a pair of singles. “They’re going to the put the ball in play and make things happen. They got great speed, definitely, and a great back end of the bullpen, too.”
Did we mention Aroldis Chapman, another Bronx ghost, driving in the final nail with a four-out save? It didn’t come easy though. In the ninth, the Yankees loaded the bases on three straight singles, but Chapman recovered to whiff Giancarlo Stanton. Jazz Chisholm Jr. — who came off the bench in the eighth as a defensive replacement — flied to shallow right and Trent Grisham swung through a 101-mph fastball to end it.
Incredibly, Chapman and his Red Sox were even cheered walking off the field as if this were Fenway Park, as the sellout crowd of 47,027 sounded like it was half-filled with road-tripping New Englanders. All night long, each of Crochet’s double-digit Ks received wild roars of approval, maybe the loudest the visiting Sox fans have been since their Bronx takeover for Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS, which of course featured Boston’s unprecedented comeback from an 0-3 series deficit.
Now the Yankees will have to make history in order to stay alive this October. Since the wild-card format was changed to a best-of-three in 2022, no team has advanced since losing Game 1 (0-12). Only two of those teams even pushed it to a Game 3, which is the task of Wednesday’s starter Carlos Rodon.
“We have been playing these types of games for a while now,” manager Aaron Boone said. “We have been playing with a lot on the line seemingly every single day. So tonight was a great baseball game that we just couldn’t get that final punch in. We’ll be ready to go, and I expect us to come out and get one tomorrow.”
Tuesday night was pure nightmare fuel for the Yankees, who managed only four hits off Crochet, including two by Anthony Volpe, whose second-inning homer gave them a lead into the seventh, right up to the point where Fried was yanked after getting the first out with his 102nd pitch of the night.
Boone is going to take some flak for that one — pulling his $218 million ace rather than trying to nudge him through the eight and nine hitters to finish the seventh. That was a stark contrast to Cora gutting it out with Crochet, and Boone’s move backfired terribly when Luke Weaver — the reliable terminator last October — walked Ceddanne Rafaela after jumping ahead 0-and-2, then surrendered a hustle double to Nick Sogard and Yoshida’s go-ahead, two-run single.
Fried’s ceiling during the regular season was 111 pitches — reached once, back on July 29 — and Boone later said he thought his ace had worked hard enough by the time he got Duran leading off the seventh. Fried didn’t necessarily agree, however.
“We’re trying to win games,” Fried said. “It doesn’t really matter about pitches or pitch counts and all that stuff now. If I’m effective, it doesn’t matter if it’s 50 or whatever it is. I just want to be an effective pitcher out there.”
Worse for Boone, Rafaela actually was a career 2-for-6 against Weaver with a pair of homers. Small sample, sure. But it didn’t make the decision look much better in retrospect.
“Ultimately, it’s just a matchup there, and that’s not my call,” Weaver said. “I go in when I’m told to go in and try to be competitive, which I was.”
And when all that stuff went sideways in the seventh, the Red Sox knew exactly how to take advantage. When Sogard dumped that sinking liner into shallow rightfield, he chose to test Judge’s suspect right arm and slid in easily to second. Afterward, Sogard said that was straight from their scouting reports on Judge’s hindered throwing ability, and he proved them correct.
“Felt like a good time to challenge the arm,” Sogard said.
And make life miserable for the Yankees. Again.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball’s Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
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