That game, SUCKED!!!!!! It started as a genuinely disappointing evening and then morphed into a level of disaster I haven’t seen from the Red Sox in New York on a single night since the pre 2004 days. Just a complete flaming train wreck in every way possible!
The entire lineup looked like trash, Payton Tolle was outdueled by Cam Schlitter, the Sox were using low leverage relievers in the late innings, and if all that wasn’t enough, Roman Anthony left the game in the top of the sixth inning, with (potentially) yet another non contact injury that involved him simply swinging a bat.
This is horrible news for the night, horrible news for the series, and probably horrible news for the big picture (but we’ll have plenty of time to get into that in the coming months).
For now, all we know for certain is this was a complete debacle from soup to nuts, and we might as well jump right into the studs (LOL) and duds.
Studs (really scrapping the bottom of the barrel here)
Adley Rutschman: Ten pitch base hit in the first inning, and he generally put in more competitive at bats than anybody else, even with a pair of strike outs.
Nick Sogard: For his defense. A beautiful double play in the seventh inning didn’t make a lick of difference in the outcome of tonight’s game, but at the time, it did force the Yankees to use Paul Blackburn for five outs. It also should have forced them use use David Bednar to close things out, but we’ll get to why that didn’t happen below.
Duds (Pretty much everybody)
The entire lineup (outside of the first inning at bat by Rutschman): Just a complete dogshit performance by all the bats tonight! Strikeouts galore, no real approach, and they didn’t even come close to sniffing a run. Not only did they get shut out, but they only got one man to second base. Abysmal!
Alec Gamboa: Faced four guys, didn’t get any of them out. Took a bad situation when he entered in the seventh and made it even worse.
Brayan Bello: When Bello entered the game, there was still a chance the Yankees would need to use David Bednar in the ninth. That all melted away on on this Ben Rice grand slam, which was his second home run and fourth hit of the night.
Not really. Since this best of three Wild Card format was implemented in 2022, there’s been 16 of them. So far, the winner of Game 1 has gone on to win 15 times. However, the one time it didn’t happen was last year when the Red Sox blew a 1-0 lead. At least now, the Sox have a chance to turn the tables (if you really, really want to look on the bright side).
Of course, that’s going to require them figuring out how to hit Yankee pitching, which they haven’t done in earnest for a year and a half.
