Brief but intense Yankees-Red Sox postseason rivalry has produced many heroes
- by Grady King
- in Sport
- — Oct 10, 2018
Brock Holt logged the first cycle in postseason history, helping the Boston Red Sox beat the New York Yankees 16-1 on Monday in Boston. Darling said he read Yankees pitching coach Larry Rothschild's lips as he said "7:40" - the game's start time - to his starting pitcher. Oh, and the Bucky Effing Dent game doesn't technically count - that unforgettable tiebreaker contest went down in the history books as Game 163 of the 1978 season - but those other 21 games have produced an impressive number of postseason heroes.
What's more evident is which side will account for more money.
Added Rothschild: "I think that's a little bit blown out of proportion".
Of course, Boston's 6-2 loss to the Yankees, which knotted this best-of-five series at one game apiece, couldn't be pinned entirely on Price - who lasted just 1 2/3 innings and gave up three earned runs in his latest postseason dud - but try telling that to the fans who want to embrace the team's highest-paid player and April-to-September standout, but simply never will until he starts winning games for them in October.
"Yeah, I think that's something that really started past year, as this fan base absolutely connected with this new young corps that has developed", Boone said.
Talking to WFAN's "Boomer and Gio" on Tuesday, Flaherty, a big-league catcher for 14 seasons, said Darling's assessment made sense to him. That's probably the first time I've ever tried to do that. "I'm there 20 minutes before (first pitch), and I get on the mound 10 minutes before". "I really do. I mean, I thought the atmosphere against the A's was special, but I think there's a potential that it could be even more so here", Boone said. Making decisions on the fly in the dugout isn't always as easy as it looks from a luxury suite, especially in the cauldron of post-season baseball. "We felt the matchup was good for him".
The plan itself was too conservative, considering the urgency of the situation, and then Boone made it worse by sitting and watching Severino give up two hits and a walk to load the bases.
Boston pitcher Nathan Eovaldi was a rock on the mound and helped the Sox hand the Yankees their most lopsided defeat in 396 postseason games.
"I think it's going to be unbelievable". Eovaldi may have been given the toughest test of any player on this Red Sox team: going into Yankee Stadium in front of a raucous crowd and stopping a high-powered NY team that was still riding high from its big win in Game 2, a game in which the Yankees took out starter David Price in just the second inning.
Looking to play left-handed hitters against Severino, the first-year skipper inserted Holt at second base and Rafael Devers at third. A second pitch, outside and called a ball, prompted Kinsler to ask "What about that one?" and Hernandez to throw the second baseman out of the game.
"He got his normal pitches routine", Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.
What would first-base umpire Angel Hernandez have to say for himself after not one, not two, not three, but four of his safe/out calls were challenged Monday night, and not one, not two, but three of them were overturned following replay reviews?
The Red Sox are 8-1 in their last nine Monday games. "Mitch is available, but he's not 100 percent", Cora said. Porcello hasn't gone seven innings in a game since August 20, so he'll have to rediscover what worked for him at times this season.
"That's probably just something they do when they win", the manager said. In his three previous playoff starts - 1998 ALCS, 1998 World Series, 1999 ALDS - the right-hander had allowed just one run and 11 hits in 22 innings, for a tidy 0.41 ERA. Most of these guys regiment their start days from the time they wake up until first pitch.
