NEW YORK — A cold front broke the summer swelter in the Bronx on Sunday. About 45,250 fans filed into Yankee Stadium for a game that carried the weight of a pennant race and, whether they knew it or not, the settling of an eight-year-old grudge.
The Yankees had spent the weekend fending off a rival that would not go away. Boston, one of baseball’s hottest teams since late June, had climbed from the American League East cellar into the wild-card chase and toward second place. A sweep could have flipped the standings. Instead, the Yankees leaned on their bullpen through a split doubleheader into a finale that felt far bigger than late August.
Manager Aaron Boone sensed something in his clubhouse before first pitch, even after a draining day-night twin bill the day before.
“I loved the energy that we came in with today, and I felt it right away,” Boone said. “It felt like we had a pep in our step coming off a day-night doubleheader into the day game.”
That energy became a rout, and the rout became a piece of franchise history Yankees fans have waited nearly a decade to author. New York hammered the Red Sox 16-1, the exact score by which Boston humiliated the Yankees in this same ballpark on Oct. 8, 2018, in Game 3 of the AL Division Series, still the most lopsided postseason loss the Yankees have ever suffered. This time, the pinstripes delivered the beating.
Why a 16-1 laugher carried playoff stakes
The final score did more than even an old one. By taking three of four and closing the season series 7-6, the Yankees (78-59) clinched the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Red Sox (74-63). New York holds the AL’s top wild-card seed and leads Boston by four games, and the tiebreaker effectively stretches that edge to five. No meetings remain between the clubs, so if they finish with identical records, that tiebreaker would send the best-of-three Wild Card Series to the Bronx rather than Fenway Park. For a team that watched a tiebreaker cost it home-field a year ago, the math is not abstract.
“It means a lot, especially with how close they are in the standings,” said shortstop Jose Caballero, who was part of last year’s Yankees club that ceded home-field on a tiebreaker. “We know that it could be down to a tiebreaker at the end for the division or for the wild card, so it’s huge to have the advantage for those.”
A disputed dive and a five-run fifth cracked it open
For four innings it was a taut duel. Boston lefty Ranger Suarez, the fourth left-handed starter the Red Sox threw at a Yankees lineup that has scuffled against southpaws, matched Will Warren zero for zero into the fifth.
The fifth changed everything, and a replay review lit the fuse. Jazz Chisholm Jr. lofted a sinking liner into short center that Ceddanne Rafaela chased on a diving try. Umpires ruled it trapped, Boston challenged, and the call stood, putting Yankees on first and second with nobody out. Ali Sanchez bunted them over, and Paul Goldschmidt nudged a 68.7-mph squibber up the middle for two runs against a drawn-in infield. Two batters later came the swing that changed a player’s month.
Heliot Ramos ends a long wait with one swing
Heliot Ramos arrived at the Aug. 3 deadline from San Francisco to punish left-handed pitching for a lefty-heavy roster. For nearly a month he did nothing of the sort, entering Sunday at .119, just 7-for-59 with one RBI in 20 games in pinstripes, boos trailing him.
With two on, Ramos turned on a Suarez curveball and drove it 416 feet into the left-field seats, his first home run as a Yankee and his first long ball since July 20. He pounded his chest rounding the bases, and Boone said he half-expected a cartwheel at third. Pressed into everyday duty against right-handers while Cody Bellinger nursed a hamstring strain, Ramos finally exhaled.
“It’s baseball. Things happen,” Ramos said. “I just think it’s knowing that I belong here, knowing that I got here, I’m here, and I know I can do it on the big stage. I can help this team.”
Will Warren rescued a gassed bullpen
The afternoon belonged as much to Warren as to any Yankees hitter. A day after the bullpen threw 9.2 innings across the doubleheader, Boone admitted he was unsure how his team would reach the finish line. Will Warren answered with the best start of his season, carrying a shutout into the eighth and retiring 13 straight at one stretch before a Trevor Story double and a Nick Sogard RBI single produced Boston’s only run.
He struck out seven, walked one and allowed six hits over seven-plus innings on 98 pitches, improving to 9-6 with a 4.23 ERA. He left to a standing ovation, and the Yankees needed only lefty Tim Hill behind him.
“Probably his best performance of the year,” Boone said. “Going in, you’re like, ‘I don’t know how we’re getting to the finish line today.’ But Will Warren changes all that.”
Number behind number: Rare Yankees feat inside blowout
Buried inside the nine-run eighth was a slice of Yankees history worth flagging. Austin Wells homered off Jovani Moran to open the frame, then launched a three-run shot off position player Andruw Monasterio later in the same inning, becoming just the sixth player in franchise history to homer twice in one inning and the first Yankee to do it since Gleyber Torres on Sept. 21, 2022. It was the seventh such instance for the club; Alex Rodriguez did it twice himself. Wells’ feat came inside a five-homer, 18-hit afternoon, the Yankees’ highest run total of the season.
An eighth inning that turned into farce
The Yankees tacked on in the sixth and seventh before the eighth turned the Bronx into a party. Chisholm walked and swiped second and third to push his AL-leading stolen base total to 40. Wells and Goldschmidt went back-to-back off Moran for a 10-1 lead, chasing Boston to Monasterio, a utility man pressed into mop-up duty. His slider topped out under 50 mph, and the Yankees showed no mercy: Caballero crushed a three-run homer on his 30th birthday and Wells struck again. Caballero finished 3-for-5 with three RBIs, Goldschmidt hit his 18th, and Bellinger went 2-for-4.
Boston did not arrive diminished. The Red Sox activated Roman Anthony and Trevor Story before the game, each back from injuries that had sidelined them since May, and each collected two hits. It did not matter.
The Yankees still trail the AL East-leading Tampa Bay Rays by 4.5 games and now head west for a six-game trip that opens Monday night in Anaheim against the last-place Angels, with right-hander Elmer Rodriguez slated to start. Captain Aaron Judge, working back from a fractured right rib, will make the trip as he ramps up, with Clarke Schmidt and Ryan McMahon due to rejoin as September unfolds.
For one crisp afternoon, though, the arithmetic could wait. The Yankees returned an infamous score to sender and banked a tiebreaker that could decide where October begins.
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