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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Sport
Hunter Felt

New York Yankees 2-6 Boston Red Sox: American League wild card game – as it happened

New York Yankees v Boston Red Sox
The Yankees' Aaron Judge (99) is tagged out at the plate by Red Sox catcher Kevin Plawecki as he tries to score on a single by Giancarlo Stanton in the sixth inning of Tuesday’s American League wild card game at Fenway Park. Photograph: Charles Krupa/AP

Final thoughts

Well, enough about my predictions. Yes, the Red Sox could—in fact—win a single-game elimination and, more improbably, it wasn’t a madcap game. We even got out of here at a reasonable hour, at least as far as Yankees/Red Sox games go. It’s hard to know if Boston will have much of a chance against the Tampa Bay Rays in their next series, but they have probably already out-performed even the most generous offseason predictions about their future.

The MLB playoffs will continue tomorrow with the NL Wild Card game between the St Louis Cardinals and the Los Angeles Dodgers. This, however, will mark the end of our MLB live blogs for the time being but look for the Guardian to continue to cover the MLB playoffs until a World Series champion is crowned. Thanks to all who followed along with today’s coverage, particularly everybody who contributed their thoughts along the way. Ciao!

After all that, the huge trade deadline acquisitions and the post-All-Star Game winning streaks, the Yankees offseason lasted a single game and a painful elimination at the hands of their bitterest rivals.

It’s going to be a fun offseason for New York sports talk radio.

Red Sox win!

Yankees 2-6 Red Sox, FINAL

Torres hits a long flyball out and that will do it! The Red Sox will be facing the Tampa Bay Rays in the ALDS while the Yankees have been eliminated!

Yankees 2-6 Red Sox, top 9th

Gallo also hits a scary-looking ball but it’s just a long out. Now the Yankees are just one-out away.

SOLO HOME RUN (Stanton, New York Yankees)

Yankees 2-6 Red Sox, top 9th

Next up for the Yankees, Stanton, who was probably the team’s best hitter… and continues to be. He hits another solo homer right around the Pesky Pole. It’s a four-run game now and still just one out. New York’s not completely dead yet.

Yankees 1-6 Red Sox, top 9th

Garrett Whitlock is out there for the “not officially a save, but it’s the ninth inning of a single-game elimination”). He gets Judge to ground out. Two outs remaining.

Yankees 1-6 Red Sox, bottom 8th

Christian Vazquez gets his first at-bat of the game. He strikes out swinging and then Dalbec grounds out. Last call for the Yankees in the top of the 9th!

Yankees 1-6 Red Sox, bottom 8th

Well, if Robles is going to have a 1-2-3 inning against your team, that’s a sign that your team probably doesn’t deserve to win. Back at Fenway, we catch the remainder of the Neil Diamond “Sweet Caroline” singalong, a local tradition that I am frankly too ashamed to discuss in detail, but hey when your team is five runs ahead in the eighth inning you’re allowed to have fun.

The Chad Green is facing the Hunter Renfroe and he actually gets him to strike out looking.

Yankees 1-6 Red Sox, top 8th

Here’s Anthony Rizzo, who promptly falls behind 0-2. And Robles, look at that, gets him out on the third pitch of the at-bat. The Yankees have one more inning left in their 2021 lives.

Yankees 1-6 Red Sox, top 8th

Odor is next and after working a full count he skies one high for out number two. That’s four more outs if anybody’s counting them at Fenway.

Yankees 1-6 Red Sox, top 8th

Oh no, it’s Hansel Robles. It’s time for the Yankees to score here and here’s someone they could have used earlier in the game: catcher Gary Sanchez. He, uh, flies out immediately here, sorry to all the Yankees fans who were hoping for him to hit a home run just to make manager Aaron Boone look worse.

RUNS! (Red Sox)

Yankees 1-6 Red Sox, bottom 7th

The Yankees take their penultimate mound visit here. It ended up being productive, I suppose, since the first pitch is a strike. Verdugo hits what he thinks will be a double, he gets called out on the play but it doesn’t matter: two runs score and the Yankees’ deficit now resembles a steep, steep mountain.

To the eighth inning!

Yankees 1-4 Red Sox, bottom 7th

Bogaerts takes two high pitches for balls. 2-0. Green might not be giving him too much to drive here. The next pitch? Absolutely not something X can do anything with, he takes it for ball three. 3-0. The next pitch? That’s ball four. That loads the bases for Verdugo.

Yankees 1-4 Red Sox, bottom 7th

The Chad Green is now pitching for New York and—no biggie—his job is to take care of Rafael Devers with two runners on base. For a brief second Devers makes contact and it feels like almost put the game away, but the ball hangs up for a long flyball. Two out, now, and it’s time for Bogaerts to see if he can make it more comfortable for Boston.

It’s probably easier to do so if your hitters aren’t promptly falling into 0-2, 1-2 holes.

Yankees 1-4 Red Sox, bottom 7th

Hernandez takes a 2-0 pitch count lead almost immediately. Never mind, make it 3-0. Feel like it’s an automatic take right here with the way the reliever’s throwing. And it is, and he does and he takes his base. It’s now two on and one out and here comes Aaron Boone to make a wise pitching change.

Yankees 1-4 Red Sox, bottom 7th

Schwarber, who has already hit a big home run today, is up next with one out and nobody on base. He takes ball four here. Walks, as the announcers keep hammering home, are the big differences between the two teams. Not a single Yankees player has taken one and that is probably the real story behind the current box score. Hernandez is up next.

Yankees 1-4 Red Sox, bottom 7th

Loaisiga pitches to Arroyo in a very vowel-y matchup that ends with Arroyo grounding out.

Seventh inning stretch

You know it’s the MLB playoffs when I’m breaking out the “Night at the Opera.”

Yankees 1-4 Red Sox, top 7th

And Urshela falls behind 1-2. He takes a too-tall high fastball and stays alive. 2-2. He swings at the next pitch. Foul. Still 2-2. Urshela swings again. Another foul. He’s still Bee Gee-ing here ad staying alive. Another pitch. THERE is a swing and miss. Another Boston strikeout and the Yankees’ postseason is down to two innings. We head to the seventh-inning stretch.

Yankees 1-4 Red Sox, top 7th

Here comes Brett Gardner and… he falls behind 0-2. And then 0-3 and, since you’re not given a chance to fall into a 0-4 hole, that means he’s out.

Yankees 1-4 Red Sox, top 7th

Young Tanner Houck is now pitching for the Red Sox, with usual starter Christian Vazquez acting as his catcher. Torres is up here to lead things off for the seventh. His first pitch? Well, that’s another strike to continue the habit of Yankees batters falling behind early. The next pitch: outside. 1-1. Torres fouls the next one off, falling behind 1-2. Torres gets some good lift on a ball but it’s just a routine fly that Hernandez catches. Make that eight outs for the Yankees to work with.

Yankees 1-4 Red Sox, bottom 6th

Bobby Dalbec is out there, one more big bat for Loaisiga to take care of this inning. Let’s see if the Yankees can at least limit the damage and focus on getting back out there and score some runs off the softer parts of the Boston bullpen.

As a matter of fact, he gets Dalbec to strike out. The Yankees now have nine outs to score at least three runs. They haven’t looked great this game, but there’s no reason to believe that those are insurmountable odds.

Yankees 1-4 Red Sox, bottom 6th

Plawecki gets called back and instead, it’s once-and-current first baseman Travis Shaw who, after some drama, strikes out to become the second out of the inning.

Yankees 1-4 Red Sox, bottom 6th

Jonathan Loaisiga is out here now to face Hunter Renfroe (yes, I will mention his first name every single time he’s at-bat). Renfroe takes three straight balls. Loiasiga gets the benefit of a strike call before finally delivering ball four. So that’s two on with one out for Boston.

RUN! (Red Sox)

Yankees 1-4 Red Sox, bottom 6th

Verdugo is up now. One out, one on. The Fenway crowd is singing along to “Seven Nation Army,” thus embarrassing me and everyone else in the New England region. What’s next? The Wave? Verdugo hits a double and we have another play at the plate… Bogaerts scores on the play after some hesitation from the Red Sox baserunning coach. The Red Sox regain the three-run lead and Boone is here to make another pitching change.

Meanwhile, that was a beyond-crucial run for Boston, obviously.

Updated

Yankees 1-3 Red Sox, bottom 6th

Severino walks Bogaerts on four pitches, so the Red Sox again have a runner on first.

Wait, Phil Nevins is a Yankees coach now? This is what I was talking about when I said that this game makes you aware of your own mortality.

Yankees 1-3 Red Sox, bottom 6th

Odor stays in the game to play third base. Severino is still in the game, facing Devers who loses his bat on his first swing. 0-1. Devers takes two more balls outside. 2-1. He has a free swing here, but he only fouls it off 2-2. The next pitch is away. 3-2. Devers fouls off another pitch. On the next one, Devers extends his reach a bit and ends up missing Severino’s offering for the first out of the inning.

Oh if the Yankees lose this one, particularly if it ends up by being a one-run margin, this image is going to haunt them for a while.

Yankees 1-3 Red Sox, top 6th

So, Stanton is at second still, but there are two out and nobody on third. The Red Sox had 33 outfield assists this season, so maybe not the wisest decision there by Judge even in a different scenario. Meanwhile, the gold Gallo falls behind 0-2. He doesn’t chase a high ball one. 1-2. On 1-2, Gallo swings and pops one up. Somehow, the Yankees only scrounge out one run there, but the Red Sox now would utterly love some more cushion here in the next few innings.

Yankees 1-3 Red Sox, top 6th

Stanton is up now with a runner on first and just one out. Eovaldi, who has been dealing all day, is taking a shower. Brasier, in on relief, falls behind 2-1. Stanton hits a massive double that sends Judge to the plate in an attempt to score… WHERE HE’S THROWN OUT!

I guess he mis-him’d it.

Instead here is Ryan Brasier.

Yankees 1-3 Red Sox, top 6th

Aaron Judge hits a grounder and Bogaerts at shortstop has to hurry. He does a decent job swinging it to first, but Aaron Judge speeds down the line. Red Sox manager Alex Cora is immediately pulling Eovaldi to hand it to a Red Sox bullpen that has been an Action Park waterslide of a disaster for most of the year. Put a pin in this decision right here.

Home Run! (Anthony Rizzo, New York Yankees)

Yankees 1-3 Red Sox, top 6th

You knew the Red Sox weren’t going to keep the Yankees off the scoreboard all game. Anthony Rizzo hits a solo shot to put New York on the board!

Yankees 0-3 Red Sox, top 6th

Rougned Odor is up for the Yankees, which is probably a sign that they’re getting a tad desperate. Facing the pinch-hitter, Eovaldi gets ahead 0-2 and then has Odor watch strike three.

Email from Alexis Panton

Hi Hunter. I’m in NYC watching the game. Not a Yankees fan but one question… is Aaron Boone the manager because he is qualified or because of one swing of the bat 18 years ago?

If you’ve asked frustrated Yankees fans this season, you’ll find a lot of people who will argue that this was his primary and perhaps only qualification.

Yankees 0-3 Red Sox, bottom 5th

That’s two quick outs and here’s Hernandez to see if he can do anything off of Severino. Not on his first two swings, it seems, as he fouls off both. 0-2. He then gently flies out to end the inning. To the sixth!

Yankees 0-3 Red Sox, bottom 5th

Schwarber is back up there and can’t imagine that Boston fans are grumbling too much about the trade deadline right now. He manages to work a full count before he grounds out as well.

Yankees 0-3 Red Sox, bottom 5th

Luis Severino is now pitching for the Yankees, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen his face. He’s here to face Christian “Please Stop Calling Me Bronson” Arroyo, who grounds out here to start the bottom of the fifth.

Yankees 0-3 Red Sox, top 5th

Can Higashioka extend the inning? No, no he cannot. Instead, he can be Eovaldi’s seventh strikeout victim. Okay, maybe we could get a well-pitched, smooth ballgame here after all.

Yankees 0-3 Red Sox, top 5th

If Eovaldi can make it through the fifth inning unscathed, he will be giving the Red Sox exactly what they needed. If he can go beyond that, hey that might be pretty neat too. Brett Gardner is up first and, just as the announcers start talking about how Eovaldi hasn’t walked anyone, he gets ahead 3-1. The next pitch? That’s a strike. 3-2. One imagines Gardner taking here…

Or he can strike out to start the inning. Boston will take that as Eovaldi gets this sixth strikeout. Then, Urshela flies out. Two down already.

How things started, how things are going.

Yankees 0-3 Red Sox, bottom 4th

Holmes stays on to face Dalbec, who promptly flies out. The Yankees desperately needed a 1-2-3 inning right there and they manage to get one, albeit vaguely unconventionally.

Yankees 0-3 Red Sox, bottom 4th

Hey, there’s Plawecki again. Feels like we just saw him! Unfortunately for him, a runner on first is the ideal situation for Holmes who induces another double-play here to make up for the leadoff hit.

Yankees 0-3 Red Sox, bottom 4th

Hunter Renfroe is up against Holmes, who is still in the game. The groundball strategy doesn’t work here as Renfroe hits it the other way for a leadoff base hit.

Yankees 0-3 Red Sox, top 4th

Torres is out here with two-out and he falls behind too, promptly falling into an 0-2 hole like he’s “E.T.” in a bad Atari game. He then hits a lazy sky ball for another easy out. Just what you want to see from Eovaldi after the Red Sox give him some additional run support.

Yankees 0-3 Red Sox, top 4th

Gallo is out now and Eovaldi once again gets ahead in the count, 1-2. That seems to be a key aspect of his success today: he’s not falling behind and it’s giving him the freedom to throw outside the zone without worrying about walking anyone. Gallo gets good wood on an Eovaldi pitch after hitting one foul but it just results in a routine fly.

Yankees 0-3 Red Sox, top 4th

Stanton is exactly the guy who can spark a comeback… but here he just strikes out and doesn’t look pretty doing it. That’s what you get with an all-or-nothing swing, it seems.

It always seems that these “pitcher’s duels” in the postseason manage to go in this direction. Now we’ll see how Eovaldi manages thigs as the hours get later and the Yankees bats have had a chance to adjust. Three-runs is nothing between these two AL East giants.

Yankees 0-3 Red Sox, bottom 3rd

And there, Holmes gets Verdugo to hit into an inning-ending double play that justifies Boone’s quick hook. Now, of course, the trick is for them to piece together a complete game out of their pitching

Yankees 0-3 Red Sox, bottom 3rd

Clay Holmes is the first pitcher out of the bullpen. He gets ahead of Bogaerts 0-2 right away. Holmes’s next pitch is so outside that the catcher has to save it to prevent the runners from advancing. 1-2. The Yankees would love a groundball here.

Instead, it’s Holmes who gets the benefit of a swinging-strike call that sends Bogaerts back to the dugout. One out.

Yankees are removing Gerrit Cole

Well, MLB ould have made all sorts of substances entirely legal but none of it will be enough for Gerrit Cole to stick around. The Yankees, seeing that this could be the season right here, decide to lift their struggling ace after just two plus innings.

Yankees 0-3 Red Sox, bottom 3rd

Devers gets ahead 2-1 and Yankees manager Aaron Boone (who knows something about all-the-marbles games between these two teams) is getting the bullpen warming already. Devers works a full-count. 3-2. He takes the next pitch and… it’s going to be ball four. That’s runners on first and second, still nobody out for New York.

Yankees 0-3 Red Sox, bottom 3rd

Hernandez then hits a weak little grounder that the Yankees fielders can’t do anything yet. No outs and now a runner on first. The Fenway crowd gets super-loud, they can see a potential big inning here.

HOME RUN! (Kyle Schwarber, Red Sox)

Yankees 0-3 Red Sox, bottom 3rd

Schwarber, the Red Sox’s big trade deadline acquisition, is up there to start the bottom of the third. He falls behind 0-2 but that doesn’t matter, he clobbers a meatball into the stands to make it 3-0.

Email from Clive Jerram:

Coming from a household that still refers to A Rod as Slappy, and remembers Jason Varitek fondly, I’m ok with his commentating - he does seem knowledgeable and explains things well. But as the missus pointed out, he’s only ever been all about himself, so we shouldn’t expect him to show any loyalty to the Yankees anyway.

I will admit, A-Rod is actually a quality commentator, I’m just firmly against former Rivalry players being involved in nationwide broadcasts of Yankees/Red Sox games. It just adds a tiring element to it.

Yankees 0-2 Red Sox, top 3rd

Aaron Judge muscles one out with a dangerous swing but it just hangs up in the outfield for the final out of the inning. To the bottom of the third!

Yankees 0-2 Red Sox, top 3rd

Anthony Rizzo is up next for the Yankees and he takes two pitches out of the zone. The third is a spiller that hits the corner, 2-1. The next pitch, Rizzo fouls one off… oh and now we’re going to get clips from that 1978 one-game playoff.

Okay, still 2-2 on Rizzo, who keeps fouling off Eovaldi pitches and at least putting a dent (so to speak) in his pitch count. Finally, Rizzo loses the battle and swings and misses for out two of the inning.

Yankees 0-2 Red Sox, top 3rd

Andrew Velazquez is up and he promptly pops up before ESPN can even finish its introduction of Bucky Unprintable Middle Name Dent.

Yankees 0-2 Red Sox, bottom 2nd

Arroyo falls behind 0-2 and then makes a risky take on a ball just outside. 1-2. Arroyo can’t avoid offering at a high fastball and he windmills his way out of the inning.

Yankees 0-2 Red Sox, bottom 2nd

Bobby Dalbec is up there now with a good chance to drive in an additional run, and considering how these Sox play they can use all the early cushion that they can get. Dalbec knows this is a big scene and, in fact, looks to be pressing: he falls behind 1-2 rather shortly. He takes another pitch, a well-framed one that’s just called a ball. 2-2. He waves and fouls the next pitch away. Still 2-2. Cole’s next pitch is away, 3-2. It feels like Cole isn’t going to be going deep into this game, some nice discipline by the Boston batters.

Cole throws a slider right on the corner, absolutely nasty. Dalbec can’t lay off of it and can’t make contact. A key strikeout for the Yankees. Here comes Christian Arroyo with a chance to salvage something.

Yankees 0-2 Red Sox, bottom 2nd

The Boston catcher is Kevin Plawecki. Yes, even I had to look up that one. Before I can get into my bad of “who is that” jokes, the guy launches a one-out double.

Somebody has to play the Bucky Dent role tonight.

Yankees 0-2 Red Sox, bottom 2nd

Hunter Renfroe, who has the coolest first name in the league, takes a strike and then a too-tall fastball. 1-1, Renfroe swings for the fences and comes off with just cool air. He then flies one out that… just barely goes foul. 1-2 count, but Renfroe stays alive for one more pitch.

Which he then strikes out on.

Oh right, I forgot that this is what postseason baseball is like.

Yankees 0-2 Red Sox, top 2nd

Eovaldi once again gets ahead 0-2, great command early for Nate. After a wasted pitch and a foul ball, he gets Higashioka to just commitment on a swing for another strikeout.

Yankees 0-2 Red Sox, top 2nd

Gio Urshela just hits a dribbler for an infield hit. Not bad location for Eovaldi, just bad results One on for Kyle Higashhioka.

Yankees 0-2 Red Sox, top 2nd

Brett Gardner, who is the Designated Wait That Guy Is Still On The Yankees player of the game, is up now. Eovaldi takes to his curveball, getting Garner 1-1, before depositing a fastball on the corner to make it 1-2. The next pitch just misses but Eovaldi gets Gardner to get himself out on the next offering.

Yankees 0-2 Red Sox, top 2nd

Gleyber Torres is up next for the Yankees, and he falls into a 0-2 hole almost immediately. Eovaldi’s next two offerings are ruled outside. 2-2. Eovaldi tries once more to get a swing and that’s just off the edge. 3-2. Torres gets a solid swing, but the ball goes to Hunter Renfroe in the outfield who tracks it down.

(/extremely James Taylor voice)

Yankees 0-2 Red Sox, bottom 1st

Alex Verdugo pops up to immediately end the inning, but Boston has done damage early.

TWO-RUN HOME RUN! (Xander Bogaerts, Red Sox)

Yankees 0-2 Red Sox, bottom 1st

Rafael Devers is up and he takes a walk. That’s the first Red Sox baserunner of the game and it will not be the last. So Xander Bogaerts is up with a chance to get Boston on the board. He gets to a hitter’s count, 2-1, and then hits a towering flyball that… leaves the stadium! Red Sox are up 2-0!

Yankees 0-0 Red Sox, bottom 1st

Enrique Hernandez is briefly up and swiftly out as he pops up to second base.

And we weren’t kidding about officiating shenanigans, as our David Lengel notes already.

Yankees 0-0 Red Sox, bottom 1st

Gerrit Cole is out to pitch for the Yankees. Kyle Schwarber gets good contact on a bad pitch but simply hits a loud, fly ball to center.

Leonard Douglas sends out an email with the perpetual question that I receive here in the headlines:

Yankee game live? How do I get it?

Well, the game itself is on ESPN so if your cable provider includes that channel, you should be able to watch live. In addition, you can get the radio call on ESPN Radio.

Yankees 0-0 Red Sox, top 1st

Eovaldi throws his first pitch out of the one to Gallo on an 0-2 count to see if he’ll chase. Gallo does not and fouls the next pitch off. Still 1-2. Eovaldi’s next pitch bounces, but the Red Sox catcher smothers it. 2-2. Gallo then gets rung up on an attempted check-swing at what would be Ball 3. Feels like a generous call, but the Red Sox will take it.

Yankees 0-0 Red Sox, top 1st

Giancarlo Stanton, who absolutely crushed Boston during their last regular-season series against each other, hits a monster flyball that looks like it should be a home run. Stanton clearly thinks it’s one, going on a premature home run trot on a ball that just stays in the yard thanks to the Monster. He has to settle for a single and here comes Joey Gallo to salvage something here for the Yankees.

Yankees 0-0 Red Sox, top 1st

Here comes the Judge. Aaron Judge quickly flies out for out number two.

Yankees 0-0 Red Sox, top 1st

Nate Eovaldi’s first pitch to Anthony Rizzo is… delayed as Rizzo takes an extra moment for a few more practice swings. It doesn’t help, he lines out right to first for the first out of the game

Alex Rodriguez is somehow part of the announcing team this time around, so I’m sure that will be incredibly unbiased commentary from him over the next few hours.

Opening pitch, it’s former second baseman and beloved local broadcaster Jerry Remy who is fighting cancer. He’s hooked up to oxygen here, throwing to Dennis Eckersley, and he gets a warm round of applause.

National Anthem

And wow, we get “The Star-Spangled Banner” before 8:00mp EST, maybe they’re fast-tracking this particular game

Well, a boy can dream. Michelle Brooks-Thompson does a perfectly fine national anthem to get us prepared for the start of Sox/Yankees here. 7/10.

2004 ALCS

Baseball is not a sport, or at least not just a sport. It’s also a great way to keep track of your mortality (feel free to use that one MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, I know you’re a reader). Even though all the players involved are now long-retired, it’s weird to hear about the 2004 ALCS as if it were ancient history.

This series, where the Red Sox overcame a 0-3 deficit to defeat the Yankees in seven games on their way for their first World Series win since 1918, was not just one of the most important in recent baseball history. It also provided some of the bluntest symbolism you’ll ever see. The Red Sox’s battle from near-elimination to a championship was a parable, one that expressed the possibility that you could flip the switch on old narratives: the underdogs perpetually plagued by bad luck and homebrewed dysfunction could actually pull off a miracle comeback and make MLB history in the process.

How long ago was that, culturally? Well, try to get young people to remember a period where casual sports fans were rooting for a Boston franchise to win a championship. Yes, those were indeed different times. One imagines many fans coming into today’s Wild Card Game rooting for the proverbial meteor.

New York Yankees starting lineup

1. Anthony Rizzo, 1B

2. Aaron Judge, RF

3. Giancarlo Stanton, DH

4. Joey Gallo LF

5. Gleyber Torres, 2B

6. Brett Gardner, CF

7. Gio Urshela, 3B

8. Kyle Higashioka, C

9. Andrew Velazquez, SS

Gerrit Cole, SP

Boston Red Sox starters

1. Kyle Schwarber, DH

2. Enrique Hernández, CF

3. Rafael Devers, 3B

4. Xander Bogaerts, SS

5. Alex Verdugo, LF

6. Hunter Renfroe, RF

7. Kevin Plawecki, C

8. Brian Dalbec, 1B

9. Christian Arroyo, 2B

Nathan Eovaldi, SP

Outfielder J.D. Martinez is apparently out after tripping over the basepaths in the last game of the season on Sunday. He could return in time to make the ALDS roster, assuming that Boston manages to survive this game without one of its biggest bats.

Our starting pitchers

Both teams will be going with their most reliable starters for today’s win-or-go-home match. (Okay, it would technically be “win and stay home” for Boston, but let’s not get bogged down in such specifics.)

New York will be putting out Gerrit Cole while Boston will be putting out Nathan Eovaldi, notorious Yankee Killer. Over the regular season, Eovaldi put up an 11-9 record with a 3.75 ERA. Cole, meanwhile, went 16-8 with a 3.23 ERA.

Don’t be shocked if neither starter doesn’t go deep, this is an “all hands on deck” game. Neither team will hesitate to go into their pen for a reliever or even potentially a nominal starter whenever they run into trouble on the mound.

Predictions

Okay, I’ll be honest: I have been spending all year saying that the wildly inconsistent Red Sox’s ceiling would be a competitive loss in the AL Wild Card game. Well, here we are. I just don’t trust their ability to avoid making boneheaded plays at the worst possible time. The bullpen is also pretty unreliable, but I feel that’s also true for New York.

In any case, the Yankees are a more talented team than the Red Sox, who made the postseason mostly thanks to the fact that played well over their heads during the first half of the season. Boston has come down to Earth in the last few months and while I don’t expect the Yankees to make it easy on themselves, look for them to score the winning runs late. Yankees 7-5 Red Sox.

I’m a pessimistic New Englander, however. Have a different prophecy? You can send it our direction and we’ll publish it here, either email it to Hunter.Felt.Freelance@theguardian.com or tweet it to @HunterFelt.

The Yankees/Red Sox rivalry

Okay, I guess we have to go into the history of the rivalry between the Yankees and Red Sox. There’s a lot going on here but at the root of it is this: Boston has always felt insecurity over being overshadowed by New York, leading to a natural rivalry between the two East Coast cities.

Meanwhile, the Yankees and Red Sox have been playing games against each other for well over a century now. Following Boston’s notorious trade of Babe Ruth to New York, the Yankees went on to become the winningest franchise in MLB history. The Red Sox then spent most of their history as being the sport’s most high-profile screwups. It took them 86 years to finally win a World Series after the Ruth trade, although they have been making up for lost time over the past two decades.

There’s a lot more to it than that, but thankfully I wrote about it in-depth the last time these two teams faced off in the postseason. Spoilers: that time it did not work out great for the Yankees.

Preamble

Well, so much for all of Sunday’s promises of chaos. Baseball writers ran down a half-dozen potential outcomes following the last day of the regular season, a list which included potential postseason appearances from the likes of the Seattle Mariners and the Toronto Blue Jays and the intriguing possibility of multiple tie-breaking games. When the dust settled, however, the old standbys had survived while the potential playoff-crashers were heading home for the offseason.

So, in the National League, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the St. Louis Cardinals will be battling in their Wild Card game tomorrow. Meanwhile, tonight we have another installment of the Rivalry That Will Never Die as the New York Yankees will battle the Boston Red Sox, with the winners heading on to the ALDS.

It says something about their cultural ubiquity that it feels like that it’s this their millionth meeting between the Sox and the Yankees. Honestly, this is the first winner-take-all game between the two since the Curse-Reversing 2004 Red Sox beat them in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series. The last time the two teams played in a one-game playoff? That would be back in 1978 for the legendary Bucky F’ing Dent Game. So, today’s game will actually be a historical rarity.

If you’re expecting a crisp, well-played game between two reliably professional teams… well, you are most likely extremely out of luck. The Yankees have had streaks where they have looked utterly invincible and they also have a pitching staff that seems liable to implode at any second. Meanwhile, the Red Sox fielders have an alarming tendency to simply forget the basic fundamentals of the game at the worst time. Expect a sloppy, poorly-officiated game that will last at minimum four hours but will almost certainly provide plenty of entertainment.

After all, what else would you expect from these two teams, who seem incapable of playing a single, normal baseball game against each other? If you’d like to contribute to our live blog of what promises to be a truly wild Wild Card game, just send your commentary here either via email (to Hunter.Felt.Freelance@theguardian.com) or using Twitter (send them to @HunterFelt).

It’s the Yankees and Red Sox, renewing their timeless rivalry once more at Fenway Park! The schedule says first pitch will be at 8:08 pm EST (we’ll see about that) but we’ll be back well before then to set the table.

Hunter will be here shortly. In the meantime here’s a quick recap of how we got to tonight’s sudden-death playoff.

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