Yankees lose Game 1 to Red Sox as Luke Weaver wastes Max Fried's gem
It is not a part of the analytics manual the vast majority of major-league teams operate from, but by and large this remains a truism in the sport: Don’t make a move celebrated by the opposing dugout.
Aaron Boone, though it was hard to quibble with it in the moment, made such a move Tuesday night when he pulled ace Max Fried with one out in the seventh inning in Game 1 of the best-of-three AL Wild Card Series.
Because the Red Sox, without a run and trailing by one, had mounted little against the lefthander, they were thrilled to see someone, anyone, but Fried throwing pitches against them.
Boone went to Luke Weaver, Boston pounced for two runs, and the Yankees took a gut punch of a 3-1 loss in front of a dispirited sellout crowd at the Stadium that suddenly has them on the brink and one game from what would be the longest of winters.
“They pressured him pretty good in the fourth, fifth, sixth [innings],” Boone said of Fried, who stranded two runners in each of the fourth and fifth innings and then one in the sixth, though didn’t allow much in the way of hard contact. “I felt like his command was not as good those final few.”
Fried, who got a double play to end the sixth and was pulled after Jarren Duran grounded out to start the seventh — on the lefthander’s 102nd pitch — allowed four hits and three walks over 6 1⁄3 innings in which he struck out six.
“I want to pitch as long as I possibly can. When the ball gets taken out of my hands, that’s what it is,” Fried said.
Did he feel like he had more?
“Yeah. I definitely felt good,” Fried said. “Whatever the team needed.”
The Yankees, who led MLB with 274 homers but struggled much of the season against quality pitchers, did so again Tuesday night against Boston ace lefthander Garrett Crochet, pushed by his manager, Alex Cora, in a way Fried was not.
Crochet, throwing a career-high 117 pitches, allowed one run, four hits and no walks in 7 1⁄3 innings, striking out 11. The lone run came on Anthony Volpe’s homer in the second, after which Crochet retired 17 straight. Volpe ended that string with a one-out single in the eighth.
Crochet threw the most pitches in a postseason game since Washington's Stephen Strasburg tossed 117 against St. Louis in 2019.
The Yankees, with those four hits entering the ninth, got singles from Paul Goldschmidt, Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger to open the ninth against Aroldis Chapman, who stranded Volpe in relief of Crochet in the eighth.
But the 37-year-old, who had his share of postseason implosions during his time with the Yankees, struck out Giancarlo Stanton, a postseason hero last season for the Yankees.
Chapman then got Jazz Chisholm Jr., oddly a defensive replacement in the eighth for Amed Rosario, who came in with good career numbers against the closer (3-for-7 with two homers), to fly to short right, not deep enough to score the slow-footed Goldschmidt. He struck out Trent Grisham swinging at a 101-mph fastball to end it.
“When we get an early lead like that, we have to keep putting pressure on them and putting more runs on them because they’re a dangerous team,” said Judge, this year’s AL batting champion (.331), who went 2-for-4. “They’re always going to hang around and they’re going to make something happen.”
The Red Sox, 9-4 against the Yankees in the regular season and now 8-1 against them in the club’s last nine postseason meetings, made things happen quickly with Fried out of the game.
After getting ahead 0-and-2 on the righty-swinging Ceddanne Rafaela, Weaver, good in the month of September but up-and-down for two months before that, walked the centerfielder on 11 pitches. Rafaela came in 2-for-6 with two homers in his career against Weaver.
Nick Sogard, the No. 9 hitter, rifled a 1-and-1 changeup to right-center for a hit and then took advantage of Judge’s throwing issues to slide in safely at second for a double. That put runners at second and third.
Cora sent up the lefty-hitting Masataka Yoshida, who hit the Yankees hard all season, to pinch hit for Rob Refsnyder and he delivered, stinging a first-pitch 96-mph fastball to center for a two-run single that gave the Red Sox a 2-1 lead.
“That’s a real tough one to swallow when you have him in an advantage count,” Weaver said. “He did a really good job of spoiling some pitches.”
David Bednar allowed a two-out, RBI double in the ninth to Alex Bregman, a longtime Yankee tormentor from his time with the Astros, to make it 3-1.
Chapman provided a glimmer of hope for the home crowd in the ninth but just as quickly shut it down and it will be up to lefthander Carlos Rodon on Wednesday to help get the Yankees to a deciding Game 3 Thursday night.
“Tonight was a great baseball game that we just couldn’t get that final punch in,” Boone said. “So we will be ready to go, and I expect us to come out and get one tomorrow.”
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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