The Red Sox And Yankees Are No Longer The Main Attraction … But They’re Still Pretty Good Theatre

If you took a baseball fan from 20 years ago and transported him or her to Yankee Stadium earlier today, he or she would have figured out the Red Sox and Yankees are no longer baseball’s main attractions at 6:08 PM, when Max Fried threw the first pitch of the AL wild card series opener between the rivals.

Baseball’s main attractions are 3,000 or so miles to the west, where the superstar-laden Dodgers began their World Series defense with a 9:08 PM EST first pitch against the Reds.

That make-some-coffee time prime time slot used to be the domain of the Red Sox and Yankees, who began 20 of their 24 playoff games between 1999 and 2021 at 8 PM or later. When the two teams were fighting for the pennant and baseball supremacy in the 2003 and 2004 ALCS, 11 of the 14 games started after 8 PM.

But even as the matinee show, a Red Sox-Yankees playoff game still brings the goods.

Garrett Crochet threw 117 pitches over 7 1/3 sterling innings, pinch-hitter Masataka Yoshida had the pinch-hit go-ahead two-run single in the seventh and Aroldis Chapman somehow got into and out of a bases-loaded, none-out jam in the ninth to preserve a 3-1 win.

“Unbelievable playoff atmosphere, from pitch one all the way through the end of the game,” said Red Sox third baseman Alex Bregman, whose RBI double in the ninth provided an important insurance run. “You’ve got to love the game of baseball. That’s what it’s all about.”

The 25th Red Sox-Yankees playoff game was a worthy heir to its predecessors — from the tautness of the final result to, especially, Crochet’s throwback ace- and workhorse-like performance.

Other pitchers to throw at least 117 pitches in a Red Sox-Yankees playoff game include Jon Lieber, Derek Lowe, Pedro Martinez and Andy Pettitte, all of whom did so during the 2003 and 2004 ALCS clashes.

Crochet escaped a two-on, none-out jam in the first and gave up Anthony Volpe’s homer in the second before retiring 17 straight and 18 of his final 19 batters. The 117 pitches were a career-high for Crochet, tied for the third-most any pitcher has thrown in a game this season and the most in a playoff game since 2019.

Red Sox manager Alex Cora said Crochet told him in the dugout during Monday’s workout that he’d only have to utilize Chapman in relief tonight.

“For some reason, our front office was in the bullpen checking something out there,” Cora said. “I told him ‘We should call the bullpen.’ He said ‘Tomorrow, you are going to make one call to the bullpen.’

“I said ‘Maybe two.’ He’s like ‘no, no, no. One. It’s going to be straight to ‘Chappy.’”

Said Crochet with a grin: “Just being arrogant, to be honest. I didn’t actually expect that to be the case.”

Crochet and the rest of his teammates were among the few amongst the more than 47,000 fans at Yankee Stadium to expect Chapman to get out of the mess he created in the ninth.

The seemingly ageless Chapman (he’s 37) went 5-3 with 32 saves, a 1.17 ERA and 85 strikeouts in 61 1/3 innings this season. But he’s suffered four blown saves in postseason play — including game 7 of the 2016 World Series, when he earned the win for the Cubs — and ended the 2017 ALCS for the Yankees by serving up the walk-off homer to Jose Altuve.

The Yankees loaded the bases when Paul Goldschmidt, Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger all singled within a six-pitch span. But Chapman struck out Giancarlo Stanton, whose 18 postseason homers since 2018 are second-most behind Altuve, before he got Jazz Chisholm Jr. to fly out to medium right and struck out Trent Grisham.

“I never really lost faith,” said Red Sox second baseman Nick Sogard, who doubled immediately before Yoshida’s hit. “He’s had one of the best seasons of a reliever, maybe ever.”

Chapman’s high-wire save ended the 13th Red Sox-Yankees postseason game to be decided by two runs or fewer and put Boston in prime position to continue its post-2003 playoff mastery of New York.

The Red Sox have won the last three series between the clubs — and since the playoffs expanded to 12 teams in 2022, every club that has won the opener of a best-of-three wild card round has won the series.

The blink-and-you-miss-it brevity of the wild card series and its start times serve as appropriate symbols of how easily the Red Sox and Yankees ceded their ground to the Dodgers as baseball’s main attractions.

The Red Sox basically surrendered to the Dodgers in 2020, when they traded Mookie Betts to the west coast. Xander Bogaerts exited for the Padres after 2022 and Rafael Devers was salary dumped on the Giants in June with eight-plus years remaining on his contract. And this really all began in 2014, when Jon Lester, who overcame cancer to win two World Series with the club and should have won a Boston hat into the Hall of Fame, was traded months before reaching free agency.

The George Steinbrenner Yankees went out and got Roger Clemens after the 1998 team had one of the greatest seasons of all-time. The Hal Steinbrenner Yankees were outbid for Juan Soto (who will not be haunting them in these playoffs) and pivoted to signing Fried and acquiring Cody Bellinger and Devin Williams — smart moves for sure, but not the fueled-by-rage ones George would have made.

Neither team was a serious candidate for Shohei Ohtani before he landed with the Dodgers and the Red Sox only flirted with luring Soto from the Yankees. It’s a long way from the days when they battled for the best players on the market — and some lesser ones as well, here’s to the chair Theo Epstein threw when he learned Jose Contreras was signing with the Yankees following the 2003 season.

But there’s at least one more chance Wednesday — again at 6:08 PM — to remember how things used to be between the Red Sox and Yankees, and get a glimpse at just how compelling their games still remain, after all these years.

“I expect the game to be just like this one,” Cora said.

They usually are — no matter when they start.