Yankees still unable to figure out Red Sox as rivalry has meaning again
Yankees manager Aaron Boone walks to the dugout after making a pitching change against the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium on Thursday night. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Back in mid-June, when everyone had buried the Red Sox, they somehow handled the division-leading Yankees with relative ease, including a three-game sweep at Fenway Park that wrapped on Father’s Day.
A few hours later, Rafael Devers — the team’s $330 million franchise cornerstone — was pulled off the tarmac at Boston’s Logan Airport and shipped to San Francisco.
For those outside the brain trust on Jersey Street — myself included — the Red Sox seemingly were plunging deeper into irrelevance, again turning into a punchline rather than a playoff contender. It figured to be another dark October at Fenway.
And yet Alex Cora & Co. showed up Thursday in the Bronx in a place none of us could have expected, entrenched in the second wild-card spot, only 1 1⁄2 games behind the Yankees.
The stakes are incredibly high this weekend. Which is how it’s supposed to be with this ancient rivalry. We just didn’t think this August clash would get to that level. “We haven’t had one of those here in a while,” Cora said before the series opener. “It was too long ago.”
By the gruesome night’s end, however, the Yankees looked like impostors in pinstripes. Luis Gil walked five in his five-inning stint, the Yankees committed four errors — including three in the second inning alone that led to an unearned run — and the bullpen blew another lead in a 6-3 loss to the Red Sox.
Did we mention Boston won its sixth straight over the Yankees despite going 3-for-19 with runners in scoring position (0-for-10 with the bases loaded at one point) and stranding 14?
The embattled Camilo Doval (7.37 ERA as a Yankee) coughed up a 3-2 lead on Roman Anthony’s RBI single in the sixth and Luke Weaver surrendered the go-ahead run on back-to-back hits to open the seventh, including Nathaniel Lowe’s RBI double. The Yankees also issued nine walks.
“Just not a real clean game,” manager Aaron Boone said. “Not a great night for us.”
And just to show that no defensive lapse would go unpunished, even Paul Goldschmidt — a four-time Gold Glover — booted a one-out grounder in the ninth (error No. 4) to set up Anthony’s two-run homer, the mic drop that finally put this 3-hour, 25-minute eyesore on ice.
“You can’t fix what happened tonight,” Goldschmidt said. “Any time you make errors — one, two, whatever — of course four, it’s going to be hard to overcome.”
As we already knew, glovework hasn’t been a specialty of these Yankees, notably dating to Game 5 of last October’s World Series. But they seem to be allergic to the Red Sox, too. Despite the fact that they haven’t made the playoffs since 2021, the Red Sox are 21-12 in their last 33 games against the Yankees.
“I felt like tonight is one of those nights that we beat ourselves,” said Jazz Chisholm Jr., who airmailed a throw over the Yankees’ dugout on a double-play pivot during that messy second inning. “ . . . Sometimes you got to just look in the mirror and say, hey, you beat yourself tonight. Tomorrow come out better and focus more.”
The Yankees’ lingering deficiencies are yet another reason why burying the Red Sox was a bit premature after a 30-35 start had them trailing the Yankees by 10 1⁄2 games in early June. They responded by taking five straight from their rivals, dumping Devers and moving up the standings, propelled by the return of Bronx nemesis Alex Bregman, the resurrection of shortstop Trevor Story and some impactful call-ups by their top prospects, primarily Anthony, who was hitting .329 with a .923 OPS in his last 42 games before Thursday night.
Since the Red Sox and Yankees last parted ways June 15 at Fenway, both teams had identical run totals (329) entering Thursday, but Cora’s crew had done more with the production, as their 3.49 ERA ranked second in the majors (Boone’s staff was 17th with a 4.45 ERA).
The Sox will use ace Garrett Crochet (13-5, 2.43 ERA) on Saturday against Will Warren, but the Yankees’ own No. 1 — Max Fried — will have a lot to prove when he faces Brayan Bello on Friday night. Fried had shaped up to be one of the Yankees’ greatest edges in any short series, but he has a 6.80 ERA in his last eight starts.
Former Yankee Aroldis Chapman has been a game-changer at age 37 with a 1.13 ERA and 22 saves. Another notable returnee to the Bronx this weekend is Bregman, who missed the first six games against the Yankees because of a quadriceps strain. Bregman tormented anything in pinstripes during his Astros tenure, and that continued Thursday (3-for-5, double) amid the boos. He’s hitting .337 with four homers, 14 RBIs and a .998 OPS in his last 23 games.
As Chisholm mentioned, however, the Yankees’ greatest enemy Thursday night was themselves. And that’s far more worrisome than the Red Sox going forward.
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.
