BOSTON — The Red Sox and Yankees met for the final time in the regular season Sunday night and Boston won for the ninth time in 13 meetings.
We’ll find out over the next two weeks if they’ll run into each other again in the playoffs.
And as they showed again in the series finale at Fenway Park, which Boston won 6-4 behind Garrett Crochet, Boston is a tough matchup for the Yankees.
“They’re scrappy,’’ Will Warren said after allowing six first-inning runs before settling down. “I think you saw that tonight. I don’t know how many ground ball hits they had. They’re gonna put together good at-bats and they’re not gonna deviate from their plan.”
To Warren’s point, Boston had just three extra-base hits Sunday, with one of them Jarren Duran’s triple to left to lead off the bottom of the first, thanks to Giancarlo Stanton’s misplay.
Regardless of how the Red Sox have gotten to this point — overcoming plenty of injuries along the way — they find themselves in a good position to get to the playoffs for the first time since 2021.
Boston is 1 ¹/₂ games behind the Yanks for the top wild-card spot and three games clear of the Rangers, who sit in fourth in the wild-card standings.
The Red Sox own a one-game lead over Houston for the second wild-card bid.
“If you told me in Fort Myers [during spring training] we were in a playoff spot with two weeks left, I would have taken it,’’ Alex Cora said. “I know people in here would have taken it, too. We’re not perfect, like I’ve always said. But it’s a good baseball team.”
And one that’s proven adept at beating the Yankees.
After allowing five runs in six innings in a start in The Bronx on June 7, the left-hander has been excellent versus the Yankees since.
He gave up just one run in 8 ¹/₃ innings to the Yankees at Fenway in the start following the one at the Stadium and then one run in seven innings — with 11 strikeouts — in The Bronx on Aug. 23.
On Sunday, Crochet was dominant early, with the Yankees putting up one hit over the first three innings, while striking out seven times.
But Stanton singled with one out in the fourth.
Amed Rosario’s two-run homer got the Yankees back in the game and Aaron Judge’s two-out blast to right-center an inning later got the Yankees closer, but the Red Sox held on to win Crochet’s fifth straight start.
They aren’t flashy, and outside of players Yankee fans have hated since before they were in Boston — Alex Bregman and Aroldis Chapman, for example — there aren’t many big names.
“People love what they do,’’ Cora said of the Yankees. “They hit the ball out of the ballpark. That’s the reason they’re so good. With where we’re at right now, we’re not doing that, so we have to cash in and make contact when it matters.”
They did that by going 3-for-4 with runners in scoring position in the first inning after struggling in that aspect in the first two games of the series — both Yankees wins.
Boston next hosts the A’s for three games before going to Tampa to face the Rays and then heading to Toronto with the wild card in the balance.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
