Thanks for Keeping Us Loose, Boston!
WOOOOO! Nothing like the taste of warm coffee and dirty water (still don’t know what that means) the morning after sending your rivals packing. For the second night in a row, the New York Yankees completely dominated the Boston Red Sox, ending their October campaign on September 30th.
Without Roman Anthony (OUT – broken fingernail), Boston’s quadruple-A lineup didn’t stand a chance against Max Fried and his C+ stuff. I had quite the laugh upon realizing that the same Jahmai Jones who served exclusively as Stanton’s pinch runner during the 2024 season was now batting leadoff for the Sox in an elimination game. I half expected Tyler Wade to be batting cleanup, with Chase Headley waiting in the wings if we brought in a lefty.
I’m genuinely curious how many innings it would take this lineup to match the 18 runs we hung on them. I estimate it would be around 1,000 — give or take.
Speaking of old Yankees, shoutout to Sonny Gray — not only for pitching much better than I expected, but also for his touching tribute to Michael Pineda. Between the comically sideways cap and a borderline blackface amount of pine tar, I think he had Tracy convinced he was, in fact, Big Mike. So much so that the Boston skipper decided to yank his starter after 4.2 innings for the second night in a row.
Sox Twitter seems pretty pissed at Tracy, and I’m not totally sure why. Did he make a single good decision the entire (short) series? No. But after seeing what we did to Crochet and Whitlock, I’m not certain there were any good buttons to be pressed.
After the game, Sonny Gray said, “I would have liked to have been trusted in that moment,” but how can his manager truly believe the words of a man who has shied away from the big innings for the better part of a decade? The decision was clear and obvious — Tracy had no choice but to call upon his lefty specialist, Erik Miller, who struggled mightily against our lefties the night prior.
After an ill-advised Luis Rojas send killed the Yankee rally, it looked like Tracy’s gamble might pay off when Wilson Contreras ended Boston’s 26-inning playoff scoring drought with a solo shot to cut the lead to 2-1. Instead of building any sort of momentum for his own team, this jackass decided to literally walk around the bases, pissing off the Yankees while simultaneously making a total ass of himself.
Thankfully, his lackadaisical effort carried over to the field, as he decided to field a throw to first on the back-right corner of the bag, kickstarting the rally that would serve as the eventual nail in the Boston’s coffin.
That sixth inning was everything for me. Jones busting it out of the box on a strikeout and then stealing a pair of bags. Lombard drilling a single to right à la Jeter. Known speedster Trent Grisham bunting for a hit. A pair of sacrifice RBIs. And a vintage three-run porch job from Belli to put this team to bed.
I can’t speak any more fondly about what I’ve seen from the Yankee offense thus far. We’ve now seen both the righty and lefty renditions of the lineup, and both have sprayed the ball all over the park. Eighteen runs and 26 hits in 16 innings is nothing short of phenomenal. It finally feels like we’re scoring runs in a way that’s conducive to winning postseason games. There have been so few noncompetitive at-bats; everyone and their backup is up there grinding, and we’re still delivering the knockout-punch homers late.
I’m not naïve to the fact that the road ahead will be much more difficult, but having this sort of offensive momentum has me fully believing we have a shot at winning this thing.
Defeating Tampa will be no small task. Their manager doesn’t shelter an entire family of rocks between his ears, their lineup can actually score runs, and we’ll be forced to play baseball in that astroturfed hellhouse of theirs. While I don’t expect a walk in the park (not sure Tropicana fits that billing), I’m happy to be coming in red-hot rather than potentially over-rested.
So, thanks for keeping us loose, Boston! We hope to see you again in 2028! Enjoy Drake Maye’s unraveling and the impending Diana Russini tell-all interview!
