By Justin Brackett
Ah! Not so fast, Red Sox. With Boston needing just one victory to seal the AL East crown, the Yankees held them off in dramatic fashion. This game was a pitching duel; Nathan Eovaldi for the Sox and J.A. Happ for the Yankees were dealing through the first two-thirds of the contest. Eovaldi masterfully allowed just two hits, zero earned runs and fanned five batters in six innings pitched.
Happ nearly matched him pitch-for-pitch, allowing just four hits, one run and striking out six batters. The lone run through six innings was a J.D. Martinez sacrifice fly in the third frame (sorry Sox fans, he was held relatively in check this game). It was the seventh inning when things got interesting. Trailing 1-0 in the bottom of the seventh, Gary Sanchez and Aaron Hicks both earned walks to force Red Sox pitcher Brandon Workman into a jam.
Ryan Brasier was then called in to relieve Workman, which ended up being costly. Neil Walker got a hanging curveball on the outer half of the plate and unleashed a 385-foot homerun into the second deck in right field.
The Yankees took the lead. Other than a Martinez triple in the eighth, the game coasted into the ninth. Zach Britton, who the Yankees acquired at the trade deadline, came in to shut the door. The Sox never go down without a fight, however.
An old adage in baseball is “put the ball in play and good things will happen,” this was certainly the case in the final frame. The Yankees committed two errors in this inning, and when you give a 100+ win team extra outs, bad things tend to happen. Those errors caused an unearned run to score in the inning, but then the rally fizzled out. The Yankees beat the Sox 3-2.
The Yankees will always enjoy beating their arch rivals and vice-versa. But, they are just postponing the inevitable. The Sox just need one win and one Yankees loss to punch their ticket to the ALDS with home-field advantage, so they’ll take the loss with grace I am sure.
The Yankees are playing to fend off the red-hot Oakland A’s for home-field advantage in the Wild Card. All season, the Yankees have had to battle injuries to rising star Clint Frazier, veteran gold glove speedster Jacoby Ellsbury, CC Sabathia, Aaron Judge, Greg Bird, Gary Sanchez, Aroldis Chapman, Giancarlo Stanton (although he never went on the DL), Didi Gregorius, Gleyber Torres, and a few guys in the minor leagues who were projected to make it to the show. New York essentially gave up their battle to win the AL East after getting swept in Boston in early August, and have had to battle tooth and nail to remain the first place Wild Card team amidst the injuries.
With Aaron Judge back from injury, their lineup should be sparked to play better baseball and ride into the Wild Card game. If they win, they will face the Red Sox juggernaut squad for an interdivision showdown.
Like I said last week though, the magic number is 1…not 0. Stay tuned, baseball fans. We can smell October baseball as much as we can smell that imminent fall weather.