BOSTON, Oct. 6 (US) – Yankees’ Xander Bogarts and Kyle Schwarber took out Ice Jarrett Cole, and Nathan Evaldi took closing in the sixth inning to help the Boston Red Sox beat New York 6-2 Tuesday night in an AL wild-blackjack game.
The Bogaerts also made a perfect relay to drive Aaron Judge off the board when the game was still close, sending the Red Sox to the AL Division Series against the Tampa Bay Rays. The first of the top five games takes place Thursday night in St. Petersburg, Florida.
With Bucky Dent in the crowd and Aaron Boone in the Yankees dugout, he chased Boston Cole in the third inning and beat New York in the playoffs for the third time in a row. The Yankees, who lead the majors with 27 world championships, haven’t won all that since 2009.
A year after transforming post-season baseball into pandemic-neutral site bubbles, a crowd of 38,324 people—the largest in the year—filled Fenway Park to revive one of the sport’s most passionate rivalries. Among them were enough Yankees fans to stoke the back and forth of insulting chants.
It was the fifth playoff game between the two opponents in a long time, with Boston winning 3-2. That doesn’t count in the 1978 AL East tiebreaker – technically the 163rd regular season game – that the Yankees won thanks to Homer Dent netting over Green Monster.
Boone, a former player who is now the Yankees manager, added to his heartbreak with his eleventh appearance on Homer’s game in Game 7 of the 2003 AL Championship Series.
The Red Sox hasn’t lost to them since.
They got their revenge the following year when they rallied after losing their first three ALCS games to eliminate the Yankees, then went on to win their first World Championship title in 86 years. They won three more series, in ’07, ’13 and ’18 when they defeated the Yankees on the Divisional Tour.
Any long-term pain in the midfield stands disappeared in the first half of Tuesday night.
Unlike Dent, who barely cleared the left field wall located just 310 feet from the main board, Bogarts dug a line 427 feet to the immediate center. And unlike Carlton Fisk, who smacked his body to revive the ball in Game Six of the 1975 World Series, Bogarts interrupted his home jog only to compliment the Red Sox bunker.
Cole was withdrawn after he allowed Schwarber’s single shot in the third inning and put two more men out with no one out. In all, he charged three runs in four runs and walked two times, hitting three in more than one innings.
Eovaldi only allowed two strokes in five rounds before giving up his singles home run to Anthony Rizzo—Schwarber’s 2016 Cubs Championship teammate—which prompted the first enthusiastic cheers from Yankees fans in the crowd.
After a single composed by Aaron Judge, Ryan Brazier pardoned Eovaldi and waived Single on the Wall to Giancarlo Stanton. When third base coach Phil Nevin accidentally waved, Judge was easily sent off — 8-6-2 — by the team that led the big business with 43 assists during the season. (The Yankees have had 22 home wins this season, the most in baseball.)
In all, Eovaldi allowed four-strokes to run in 5 1/3 innings, writing off eight. Alex Verdugo doubled in one game in the sixth game to make it 4-1, then doubled it two more times in the seventh game to give Boston a 6-1 lead.
Picked up from the wall early, Stanton collided with Homer solo at nine.
Teams swap places twice in the final 10 days of the season, starting with the Yankees’ three-game sweep of Boston on Sept. 24-26, which moved them to the first wild card spot. At one point, Major League Baseball went through tiebreaker scenarios and the Yankees had to choose whether they wanted to play in Boston or Toronto to break the four-way tie.
They chose Boston.
Although a tiebreak was unnecessary when the two teams finished well ahead of Toronto and Seattle — with an identical 92-70 record, Boston earned a home field thanks to a 10-9 head-to-head record — the Yankees’ word. The decision rests with the Red Sox.
“We knew about it. We don’t really talk about it because we have some work to take care of ourselves,” Red Sox midfielder Kiki Hernandez said before the game. “They wanted us and they got us now, win or go home. That’s it.”
coach room
Yankees: 3B Gio Urshela played despite bruising his thigh at the close of the regular season when he fell into the dugout after catching a pop-up foul.
Red Sox: Boston was without DHD Martinez, who injured his ankle in the regular season finale. Martinez, who was playing on the field in Washington, because there was no DH in NL Park, slid onto second base as he ran to his field position.
the following
Yankees: pitchers and anglers are scheduled to give spring practice on February 14.
Red Sox: Open Top 5 ALDS against Tampa Bay on Thursday.