ALWC 2: Yankees 9, Red Sox 2

Red Sox - 000 001 100 - 2  4  1 
Yankees - 000 116 10x - 9 14  0 

What a shit show.

The Red Sox trailed by one run after Willson Contreras bopped a home run to right-center in the top of the sixth. It was the first time in these two ALWC games that a Boston runner's foot had touched third base – and home plate. It snapped both the longest scoreless streak to start a postseason series in franchise history (14.2 innings) and a streak of 26.2 postseason innings in which the Red Sox had not scored (which included the final 12 innings of last year's ALWC series).

So things were looking up . . . sort of. A glimmer of hope.

Then Boston manager Chad Tracy decided – for the most important four innings of the entire season, when it was imperative to keep the Yankees from scoring any more runs – to hand the ball to the biggest question mark in the bullpen – Garrett Crochet – a guy who had not pitched in an actual game in over five months. On the plus side, he'd be pitching on 157 days of rest.

And to no one's real surprise, everything unraveled. Crochet struck out Spencer Jones, but the ball got away from catcher Adley Rutschman, rolling off to the third base side of foul territory. His throw was just a little too late – the original call was out, but was overturned when the Yankees challenged. Jones then stole second and went to third when Rutschman's throw sailed wide of second and into center field. Crochet allowed singles to the next three batters (one was a bunt to third), before he was pulled.

Garret Whitlock came in with New York up 3-1, the bases loaded, and no one out. Whitlock got two outs, but both a fly to left and a grounder to third brought in single runs. It was 5-1. Tracy opted to walk Ben Rice (who was 1-for-3 with a single after his big Game 1) intentionally, a move which backfired horribly when Cody Bellinger hit a three-run dong to right-center. (Not that it mattered in the end. 5-1  would have been more than enough to dismiss the Red Sox.)

Nick Sogard homered in the seventh with two outs. The Yankees also scored in that frame on two walks, three stolen bases, and a single. Boston's season came to an meek and pathetic end when Caleb Durbin swing and missed the final pitch of the night, a 95-mph fastball down the middle.

ALDS: The Yankees will play the Rays. The White Sox swept the Astros 6-3, 7-3 and will play the Guardians. Both series start on Saturday.

NLDS: The Padres beat the Cubs 8-0, 4-1 and will face the Brewers on Saturday.  The Phillies and Atlanta are tied 1-1 (Atlanta won G1 5-3 before Phillies took G2 4-3 in 10 innings). Game 3 is Thursday night; the winner plays the Dodgers beginning on Sunday.

Jones, DH
Rutschman, C
Contreras, 1B
Abreu, RF
Rafaela, CF
Durbin, 3B
Sogard, 2B
Story, SS
Eaton, LF

Sonny Gray / Max Fried

Sonny Gray waived a no-trade clause last December, agreeing to a trade to the Red Sox, because

it feels good to me to go to a place now where it's easy to hate the Yankees. It's easy to go out and have that rivalry and go into it with full force, full steam ahead. I like the challenge.

Gray, 36, will meet his biggest challenge of the season tonight. He was the Red Sox's best starting pitcher in 2026, leading the staff with a 2.72 ERA (8th in MLB) and 150 ERA+ (tied for 10th in MLB). He also tied for the most wins (18), for whatever that's worth. More importantly, he pitched at least six innings in 22 of his 29 starts.

Gray also pitched for the Yankees in 2017 and 2018. He was traded to New York at the 2017 deadline and admits he "never wanted to go there in the first place" and the move was not good for his family.

Jacob Roy, Over The Monster, September 30, 2026:

Let's think about it in innings. The Red Sox used five relievers on Tuesday night . . . That leaves Ranger Suarez, Garrett Crochet, Garrett Whitlock, Aroldis Chapman, and Jake Bennett as the unused [bullpen] pitchers . . . 

Ranger Suarez is set to start game three. Garrett Crochet is a complete unknown. . . . Garrett Whitlock has been one of the best relievers in baseball, but his longest outing of the season is 1.1 innings. . . . Chapman, like Whitlock, has been fantastic, but hasn't got more than three outs in a game this season. If you put those three arms together and assign two innings to Crochet, that's four innings. . . . 

The offense was, at least in terms of scoring, the worst in baseball in September. Roman Anthony was lost in the middle of game one, and the rest of the lineup couldn't touch Schlittler. . . .

For the Red Sox to win today, they need Sonny Gray to turn in one of the best postseason performances of his career.

Roman Anthony was taken off the Red Sox roster and replaced with Curtis Mead. Manager Chad Tracy said:

He was sent back last night after leaving the game. Sent him back to Boston for extra, additional imaging, which actually revealed some new strains to different muscles in his wrist, in addition to exacerbating the old [finger] injury [a partially torn tendon in a joint that connects his right ring finger to his wrist back on May 4].

The roster change means that if the Red Sox win this series, Anthony would be forced to miss the ALDS. 

Max Ralph (mlb.com) reports:

[T]eams taking a 1-0 lead in a three-game Wild Card series have gone on to win the series 21 of 24 times (88%), including 17 two-game sweeps. Home teams have won all nine series in which they have gone ahead 1-0, including eight sweeps.

ALWC 1: Yankees 9, Red Sox 0

 

Red Sox - 000 000 000 - 0  3 0

Yankees - 010 010 25x - 9 12 0

Almost exactly one year ago, on October 2, 2025, in the winner-take-all Game 3 of last year's ALWC series, Cam Schlittler pitched eight shutout innings against the Red Sox, striking out 12. The Yankees mugged Connelly Early in the fourth inning, winning the game with ease, 4-0.

Schlittler was also on the mound Tuesday night in New York, the next postseason game between these two rivals. Schlittler was equally untouchable (6.1-2-0-1-10, 117). He recorded 18 swings-and-misses . . . in the first four innings.

He and two relievers had absolutely no trouble rendering the Red Sox lineup completely impotent. Boston had a total of four baserunners, only one of which got past first base (and was left on second). Of the Red Sox's first 23 outs, only one left the infield.

The Yankees led 2-0 at the stretch and then hammered the back end of the Boston bullpen, scoring seven more runs in two innings. Ben Rice capped an outstanding night, hitting an grand slam in the eighth of Brayan Bello. Rice hit two home runs, a single and a double, scored twice and drove in six. He's the first MFY with multiple homers including a grand slam in a postseasion game.

OptaSTATS reports:

On Tuesday the Yankees' Ben Rice: hit multiple homers, hit a grand slam, had all of his team's XBH, outhit the entire opposing team. No one else in MLB history has done all of that in any game, regular season or postseason.

56 pitchers have made multiple postseason starts against the Red Sox. Schlittler joined Bob Gibson as the only two to have two games of 10+ strikeouts. Gibson fanned 10 Red Sox batters in Games 1 and 7 of the 1967 World Series.

Schlittler now has a 0.47 ERA in his first six career starts against the Red Sox (including postseason) , the lowest by a pitcher against Boston since ERA became an official stat in 1913. . . . His 117 pitches was a career high.

This was the entirety of the Red Sox's offense:

T1: Adley Rutschman singled with one out. Willson Contreras and Wilyer Abreu both struck out.

T5: Jarren Duran walked with two outs. Trevor Story flied to center.

T7: Abreu singled to right-center (Schlittler's last batter). Ceddanne Rafaela GIDP.

T8: Story doubled with two outs. Caleb Durbin flied to center.

Reached Base Safely

Ben Rice: 4 times in 5 plate appearances

Red Sox: 4 times in 30 plate appearances

September 29, 2026 was the first day in postseason history with two shutouts of 8+ runs. The Padres dismissed the the Cubs 8-0.

The Red Sox are in danger of exiting this postseason without leaving any evidence they were here at all.

Red Sox -  
Yankees -  

G1: Payton Tolle / Cam Schlittler

G2: Sonny Gray / Max Fried

G3: Ranger Suarez / Gerrit Cole

Best-of-3. The winner of the series will play the Rays in the ALDS.

The Red Sox have been in a hitting/scoring slump for most of this month. In 17 games since September 8, they've scored only 42 runs (2.47 runs per game) while going 7-10. In their last eight games, the red Sox have scored more than two runs only once (1, 1, 2, 1, 0, 4, 2, 2). . . . Boston went 6-7 against New York this season. The most runs they scored off the MFY in a game was six, which they did three times.

But all that is old news. It's time to bring the bats because . . .  IT IS ON!

Red Sox & Yankees Will Meet In ALWC On Tuesday

The Red Sox and Yankees are expected to meet in one of the two American League Wild Card series next Tuesday. Boston can grab the AL's #5 seed with a win tonight. The series will be a best-of-3, with all of the games in the Bronx. . . . Will the Red Sox ring in YED 2026 on September 30 or October 1?

The Red Sox are in the postseason thanks to a historic 30-game stretch in which they went 27-3 (.900), a stretch that stands in stark contrast to the 58-70 record (.453) in games before and after that period.

0326-0701:  37-48 .435
0702-0807:  27- 3 .900
0808-0923:  21-22 .488
            85-73 .538  (4 games remaining)

Lefty Garrett Crochet (2025 AL Cy Young runner-up) hasn't pitched in a game since April 25, because of left shoulder inflammation. On Tuesday, he threw 16 pitches of batting practice, hitting 96 mph.

I would say the way that live just went, that I could go get outs. It depends obviously what role they want me in. . . . I know myself, and I know my body, and the biggest thing was that I felt good out there. Felt like I was able to ramp up intensity to a place that I haven't gone yet.

Ian Browne reports that Aroldis Chapman is back after missing about two weeks with a lat issue. "I'm happy to be back. . . . I feel like I'm at 100 percent right now." Manager Chad Tracy expects to have his set-up-closing trio of Tyron Guerrero, Garrett Whitlock and Chapman for the ALWC.

Tracy's starters for this week's series against Cleveland were Payton Tolle, Sonny Gray, and Ranger Suarez, but he has not yet confirmed that would be the order against the Yankees. . . . Gray's 2.72 ERA is 8th in MLB, 5th in the AL. Tolle (3.03) and Suarez (3.23) are not too far behind in ERA.

The Red Sox went 6-7 against the Yankees this season. Boston's four-game sweep at Fenway (June 25-28) was a bit of a prelude to their 27-3 run.

In 2021, the Red Sox beat the Yankees 6-2 in the Wild Card Game. In the 2025 ALWC, the Yankees defeated the Red Sox 4-3 and 4-0 after Boston won the first game 3-1.

Will perennial IL-lodger and postseason whiff-machine* A-A-Ron Judge play in the series? Judge (right calf strain) said he'll be ready to play ("that's what the plan is"), but his manager said the exact opposite. "We're planning on him not being a part of [the ALWC]." . . . Craig Calcaterra reports that this is "the third or fourth time since Judge came off of his long IL stint this season that he's either contradicted what someone on his team said or otherwise did not go along with the expected flow of ballplayer communications".

*: If strikeouts were hits, Judge would have a .370 postseason batting average (91-for-246). . . . His actual average, in 65 career post-season games, is an unimpressive .236 (58-for-246).