G144: Yankees 5, Red Sox 0

Yankees - 000 010 301 - 5 12  0
Red Sox - 000 000 000 - 0  7  0

The Red Sox, champions of the American League East for the past three seasons, were officially eliminated from the division race on Monday night.

And for the first time in 117 years, the Red Sox and Yankees finished a season with no games against each other decided by one run.

David Ortiz threw out the night's first pitch, his first public appearance since being shot on June 9.

First of all, I want to thank God for giving me a second opportunity in my life to be able to be here with all of you. I want to thank the Red Sox, my real family, they have always been there for me, supported [me]. With what happened to me, they were the first supporting me. Thank you very much, Red Sox family. ...

I want to thank all of you for all the prayers, all of them came home. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. I want to thank my former teammates for being there for me. And also, all of them came home to check on their boy. Also, I want to thank the Yankees, a lot of my boys over there came over to check on Big Papi. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. God bless you all. Go Sox.

The Red Sox trailed 1-0 after six innings, thanks to a solid performance by Eduardo Rodriguez (6-5-1-1-9, 117). Darwinzon Hernandez gave up a home run to start the top of the seventh and could not finish the inning, allowing two doubles, a single, a wild pitch, and two more runs.

Jackie Bradley went 3-for-3 and Christian Vázquez had two hits. Boston left 10 men on base and went 0-for-7 with RATS.

Astros Score 36 Runs In Two Games: On Sunday, the Astros beat the Mariners 21-1. On Monday, the Astros beat the Mariners 15-0. Houston hit six home runs in the first two innings on Monday, something never done by a major league team before.

AL Wild Card: TBR/OAK –, CLE 1.0, BOS 8.0.

James Paxton / Eduardo Rodriguez

Betts, RF
Devers, 3B
Bogaerts, SS
Martinez, DH
Vázquez, C
Travis, 1B
Holt, 2B
G. Hernández, LF
Bradley, CF

As noted yesterday, the Red Sox and Yankees have never had a season series – not once in 116 years – without at least one game decided by a single run. 2019 could be the first season, as tonight's game is the final contest of the year between these two teams.

The Red Sox are 5-13 against the Yankees in 2019 (scores, with wins in bold):

0-8, 3-5, 1-4, 3-5, 8-5, 13-17, 8-12, 19-3, 10-5, 9-5, 6-9, 2-4, 2-9, 4-6, 4-7, 6-1, 1-5, 5-10

Only 4 of the 18 games have been decided by two runs and fewer than half (8 of 18) have been decided by two or three runs.

If the Red Sox lose tonight, they will be mathematically eliminated from the AL East race.

AL Wild Card: TBR/OAK –, CLE 1.5, BOS 8.0.