NEW YORK — There’s no better grudge match in professional sports. The Yankees and Red Sox opened a pivotal four-game series on Friday night in the Bronx, separated by just two games in the AL East, both chasing October dreams with real urgency and little margin for a bad weekend. These are the types of games where neither team can afford to make costly, fundamental mistakes.
But the Red Sox couldn’t help themselves, committing a baserunning error to halt their momentum in the fifth inning, and the Yankees maintained their focus throughout the series opener to win 1-0. New York tends to play better behind right-hander Cam Schlittler, the Massachusetts native who toed the rubber against his favorite childhood team and notched 200 career strikeouts on Friday. "I think the division is wide open," Schlittler said after striking out eight, walking five and allowing two hits against Boston.
"Tampa’s got a couple games on us. Boston’s right behind us. I think we separate ourselves from Boston this weekend and it puts us in a good spot.
And we got a really big series against Tampa down the road. It’s wide open. I think we had a good opportunity last year, and it obviously ended in a tie.
It’s frustrating. We gotta make sure we put ourselves in a position where that doesn’t happen again." Boston strutted into Yankee Stadium having gone 41-14 since a June sweep of the Yankees dragged them out of last place. New York just dropped a series to Houston and has struggled to find any offensive consistency with Aaron Judge on the shelf with a rib fracture since the end of May.
Whether it’s Aaron Boone’s walk-off home run in the 2003 ALCS, Dave Robert’s stolen base in the 2004 ALCS, Derek Jeter crashing into the stands, Pedro Martinez shoving Don Zimmer to the ground, David Ortiz’s home run in extra innings, or Mariano Rivera blowing the save, this historic rivalry has always found a way of making regular-season games feel like October baseball. Yet again this weekend, both dugouts had real reason to feel the floor shifting underneath them. Both clubs are addicted to drama when they clash.
The Red Sox entered the weekend with the edge, leading the season series 5-4. All they have to do is split the four-game series to hold the tiebreaker advantage for home field in a potential wild-card series matchup against the Yankees. Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy didn’t shy away from the fact that it’s important for the club to play at Fenway Park in a potential wild-card series.
Playing at home is a real advantage in a short series, he said. "The dynamic of the offense changed," Tracy said of what has propelled the club these last two months. "The swing decisions, and grinding out at-bats, drawing walks, that’s what changed.
We went from a team that was having a lot of trouble scoring runs to a team that scores the most runs. So, for me, the offensive identity is what flipped the most." Trailing 1-0, Boston had Schlittler on the ropes in the fifth inning after No. 9 hitter Anthony Seigler worked a leadoff walk and Cedanne Rafaela laced a single up the middle to put the go-ahead run on first.
The bullpen started to get loose as Schlittler’s pitch count approached 90. Right on cue, the Yankees turned an unusual double play to help their ace escape the jam. Wilyer Abreu flew out to center fielder Trent Grisham, who chucked the ball to second base.
Jazz Chisholm quickly turned and fired to first to catch Rafaela napping several steps off the bag. Just your casual 8-4-3 double play to keep Schlittler in the game for another inning. Again, in the sixth inning, it was the Yankees’ sharper defense that helped preserve their miniscule one-run lead when Cody Bellinger threw Rafaela out at home from left field to end the inning and Boston’s threat.
The Yankees’ specialists against southpaws were out in full force in the series opener. Friday was the first time New York faced a left-handed starter in three weeks. With southpaw Patrick Sandoval on the mound, that suggested it would likely be a good day for veteran Paul Goldschmidt at the plate.
And Heliot Ramos, too, the Yankees hoped. It took only two at-bats for Goldschmidt to figure Sandoval out. In the third inning, the Yankees’ leadoff man slugged a jaw-dropping 430-foot solo shot to the deep left field bleachers to give the Bombers a 1-0 lead that would end up being the difference.
Yankees captain Aaron Judge popped out of the dugout and spilled onto the field to applaud Goldschmidt for hitting a very Judgian home run. The relief on Goldschmidt’s face was blatant; he hadn’t played since Aug. 21 against the Blue Jays due to the parade of right-handed starters the Yankees have faced for the majority of this month.
With a slew of Red Sox lefties on the docket in this four-game series, this is supposed to be Ramos’ time to shine, too. Yankees general manager Brian Cashman picked up Ramos at the trade deadline to help the lineup do more damage against southpaws. Ramos came to the Bronx with an .832 OPS against lefties, compared to a .683 OPS against righties.
He has struggled mightily at the dish since donning the pinstripes. Ramos entered Friday batting .111 with one RBI and 19 strikeouts in 17 games with the Yankees. With Sandoval, Jake Bennett and Ranger Suarez representing three left-handers who are all on the mound for the Red Sox this weekend, this series is as good an opportunity as any for Ramos to get going.
He drew a couple of walks against Sandoval but that never materialized into a run. "Great, great win," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. "Tonight’s a great peek where, especially with a doubleheader lurking, it’s just like everything matters.
Every little thing matters. A guy getting on base and extending a situation, all those things add up." It’s uncanny that Boston’s season turned around when they swept the Yankees at home at the end of June. Their playoff odds plummeted to the lowest they’ve been all year right before the Bronx Bombers visited Fenway Park.
Then the Red Sox went on an incredible run, winning 20 of their next 22 games, which included a historic 15-game winning streak, to finally push them over .500 and settle as clear buyers just ahead of the Aug. 3 trade deadline. When it looked like Boston had all these attractive pieces to sell, including closer Aroldis Chapman and veteran starter Sonny Gray, it went ahead and shocked the industry with the most surprising trade of the deadline.
The Red Sox agreed to send a five-player package to Baltimore to acquire three-time All-Star catcher Adley Rutschman in a blockbuster move that signaled their aggressive push for a deep postseason run. The Yankees, also in need of an upgrade at catcher, targeted Rutschman at the deadline, but Cashman was unwilling to meet the Orioles’ demands for the talented backstop. New York failed to address its need in the bullpen, too, which is making this four-game set all the more tense for the Bombers.
The relief corps is constantly walking a tightrope with a lack of depth arms and a new injury to set-up man Fernando Cruz. With the Yankees offense struggling to score runs in a Judge-less world, the entire pitching staff has to be nearly perfect every night. And that’s exactly what it took on Friday as the Yankees used three relievers after Schlittler’s scoreless performance to keep the Red Sox off the board.
It took heads-up plays, a pitching wall, and Goldschmidt’s solo homer to come out on top in the first of four enormous games in the Bronx. "Any division game, especially closing in on September, is always important," Bellinger said. "Coming out today, our pitchers did a great job of keeping us in that game.
It’s nice to get the first one."
