Red Sox eliminate Yankees in Wild Card Game to set up bout with Rays
Monday’s Massachusetts evening Lottery Number of 1978? The admittance of Bucky “Bleeping Dent” into Fenway Park? Twas the nightmare before first pitch for Red Sox Nation?
No, no, and most certainly no. There was no correlation. And frankly, after Bucky, who was in attendance, and his New York Yankees fell 6-2 to the Red Sox, all these omens look pretty silly and will be documented as attempts by the outside world to create a narrative for a story.
Red Sox ignore bad omens to beat Yankees
Boston, meanwhile, brushes all of them off and heads to the American League Divisional Series to face another division rival, in this case, the reigning American League Champion Tampa Bay Rays.
More Red Sox. Ramirez attempting comeback. light
What a journey for the boys in Beantown. To even get to this point was no easy feat. A late-season skid including a sweep by New York in late September, along with shocking losses in Camden Yards, and having to win every game in Washinton to avoid chaos?
Additionally, New York had a choice of whether to play on the road in Boston or Toronto had the Blue Jays made the postseason. New York chose the former, and safe to say; it came back to bite them.
Oh, and how do Alex Rodriguez and Matt Vasgersian feel right now after that game? For those who watched on ESPN, you would have thought this was a Yankee-centered broadcast. Repeated mentions of Aaron Boone and his big hit in 2003 and Bucky’s historic pop fly in the previous century, all for naught.
Dent’s home run in the 1978 one-game playoff was part of the now long ago 86-year drought that Bostonians suffered, and the Yanks went on to win the Fall Classic against the Dodgers. Boone’s hit wound up sending New York to the Fall Classic, but they lost to the Florida Marlins in six games.
Since 2003, it was the Pinstripes that faltered in the postseason whenever the two teams collided. 2004 with the biggest comeback in baseball where Boston eventually broke their curse, and 2018, when Boston took the ALDS in four games and again went on to win it all.
The Boston Red Sox will always enjoy beating the New York Yankees, and this being the postseason adds to the fun.
Once again, the other shoe did not drop. There was no sight of Boone recording a blast off Tim Wakefield. Boone was in the building for this match. But he was a bystander as the Yankees manager, watching them falter against Alex Cora, who seemed to push all the right buttons.
Xander Bogaerts started strong, blasting a two-run homer, and Kyle Schwarber racked up a solo run against Gerrit Cole, who was pulled well before the third inning concluded. So much for that $324 million, right?
In contrast, Nathan Eovaldi, whose contract isn’t as expensive as Cole’s, had Boston roaring with eight strikeouts before giving up a run to Anthony Rizzo to cut the deficit to 3-1. Then Cora pulled him, and there was indeed, a feeling of uneasiness.
Ultimately, the men in red had no reason to fear, as Yankee batters, except for Rizzo’s blast and Stanton’s late homer, essentially had no effect. That is unless you count Stanton’s shot early in the game that had Vasgersian calling home run when it turned out to be a single.
Alex Verdugo’s double at the bottom of the sixth created an insurance run to make it 4-1 before registering another hit in the bottom of the seventh with the bases loaded, creating two more runs.
So ends the Yankees season, so ends the dreams of all the Yankee fans who had dreams of crushing the Red Sox on the mound in this Wild Card game. Those dreams must wait until next spring.
Next. Martinez could make huge mistake. dark
Instead, Boston is moving on, and given who they are about to face, they’d much rather focus on that, but beating their arch-rivals in a winner-take-all is a feeling of pure euphoria.