Yankees manager Aaron Boone rushed to get to his bullpen, which is not New York’s strength. Red Sox manager Alex Cora was in no hurry to get to his pen. Therein lies the story of how Game 1 of the wild-card series at Yankee Stadium was decided.
Boone removed a dominant Max Fried with one out in the seventh inning to put a 1–0 lead in the hands of Luke Weaver.
There was nobody on base. The 8–9 hitters were due up. Fried had just fanned Jarren Duran. He had thrown 102 pitches. Fried threw more than 102 pitches this year, including his most recent start against the last-place White Sox.
The batter due up was Ceddanne Rafaela, who was 0-for-2 against Fried in this game and 2-for-12 in his career. He had two homers in six at-bats against Weaver.
Wait, there is more. Rafaela, a right-handed batter, is a reverse-split hitter. He hit .260 vs. right-handed pitchers and .220 against lefties. He was the (.265 OBP). Boone pulled a lefty, his best pitcher, to have a righty pitch to Rafaela.
It blew up. Weaver walked Rafaela, a guy with a walk rate almost half as low as the major league average. The fire was lit. Nick Sogard dumped what for most people would have been a single into right center. But knowing Aaron Judge cannot throw with authority due to an elbow injury suffered earlier this year, Sogard never wavered in turning the hit into a hustle double. That’s great game prep by the Boston staff.
Cora sent lefty Masataka Yoshida to bat for Rob Refsnyder. Boone could not counter. Weaver needed to face a third hitter. (Not a big deal; Weaver has been better against lefties.) Yoshida ripped a first-pitch fastball for a two-run single, which proved to be the winning hit.
Asked why he pulled his best pitcher so quickly, Boone said, “They pressured him pretty good in the fourth, fifth, sixth. Had a couple base runners each inning. Felt like he kind of cruised through the first few and obviously ends up pitching great. Had to work pretty hard. I was going to have the sixth be the end. After we finished with the double play [in the sixth], I wanted him to go out and get Duran and felt like we were lined up.”
The questions did not stop. Did Boone think Fried was tiring?
“Maybe a little bit I felt that way,” he said. “I felt like his command was not as good those final few [innings]. He was making so many big pitches and his stuff was good. Look, he gave us what we needed and felt really good about the outing he put forth. But I felt pretty convicted, like, especially we got the double play. Let’s go get one more hitter and be good.”
It was not a good answer, this stuff about “gave us what we needed,” especially when it is your ace in Game 1 and juxtaposed against how Cora handled Garrett Crochet, his ace. Cora let Crochet throw 117 pitches—. It was old-school baseball. So was handing the ball from Crochet straight to his closer, Aroldis Chapman, with one out in the eighth.
Cora got every big platoon matchup he wanted. All 141 pitches thrown by Boston were by lefthanders, which kept Ben Rice on the bench and allowed Chapman to get the final two outs against lefthanders Jazz Chisholm Jr. (whom Boone oddly put into the game on defense while trailing with Chapman looming) and Trent Grisham.
Cora won the platoon matchups in the three key at-bats in the seventh (Rafaela vs. a righthander and two lefties vs. a righthander) and he won the matchups at the finish.
Boone’s bullpen faltered again when David Bednar allowed a two-strike, two-out dagger of a double to Alex Bregman in the ninth to push the Boston lead to 3–1.
Give the Red Sox credit for building quality at-bats while trailing on the road. The best of their at-bats came against the Yankees’ bullpen. It was Boone who had to answer for them.