New York Yankees 9, Red Sox 0, and for about seven innings it was a much tighter game than the score will make you remember.
That's the thing about a blowout in October. Nobody recalls the 1-0 and 2-0 stretch where one bad swing could have flipped the whole series script. They recall the grand slam. Fine. We'll get to the grand slam, but the game was won earlier, by a starter who kept Boston off the board and a bat that wouldn't let the Yankees stay stuck on one run.
The Yankees scored nine, and Ben Rice drove in six of them. The Red Sox scored none, which is the cleanest way to open a short series.
Schlittler Sets the Tone
Cam Schlittler gave the Yankees 6.1 scoreless innings in Game 1 of the AL Wild Card Series. Two hits, one walk, 10 strikeouts, 117 pitches. Boston as a team got three hits all night, and Schlittler gave up two of them. He never let the Red Sox get comfortable.
He got a little help from the robots, too. Austin Wells won an ABS challenge that turned a ball into a strike, and Rosario won one (strike overturned to ball) that turned into a walk. Small stuff. Postseason games are made of small stuff.
The Early Runs
The Yankees got their first run in the second. Wells slapped a sharp single to right, George Lombard Jr. scored, and it was 1-0.
Then came the fifth, and the turning point. Boston had just pulled Payton Tolle after 4.2 innings (five hits, one run, four strikeouts, and a better night than the final score suggests). Erik Miller came in with two outs, and Ben Rice hit a 423-foot solo shot to center.
2-0. The Stadium finally exhaled a little. It was also the biggest swing of the game by win probability, bigger than anything that came after (including the grand slam), which is a nice reminder that the loud homer isn't always the important one.
Ben Rice Finishes It
The seventh got ugly for Boston. Rice singled to bring home Spencer Jones, and Luis García Jr. grounded into a double play that still scored Wells. 4-0. Boston's bullpen was a revolving door by then, and nobody on that side seemed to know which way it spun.
Wells added a sacrifice fly in the eighth to make it 5-0, and then with two outs Brayan Bello left a pitch in the wrong place. Rice put it into center for a grand slam, 408 feet, and Ryan McMahon, Jones and Paul Goldschmidt all came around to score.
Rice's final line: 4-for-5, two homers, six RBI. Yankees pitching didn't need any of the last four runs, which is exactly how you want it.
The Supporting Cast
Wells went 2-for-3 with two RBI, and Lombard went 3-for-4 and scored twice. Anthony Volpe and Jones each chipped in a hit, and Goldschmidt and Rosario drew walks. The Yankees finished with 12 hits to Boston's three, and they didn't commit an error.
Paul Blackburn (1.2 innings, one hit) and John Schreiber (a scoreless inning, one strikeout) covered the rest, and Boston never really threatened. The Red Sox left three men on base all night.
Aaron Judge wasn't in the lineup, either. The Yankees won by nine anyway (make of that what you will).
What Comes Next
The Yankees lead the best-of-three series 1-0. One more win and they're through, and Boston has to find a way to score, because three hits won't beat anybody in a series this short. The Red Sox bullpen also has some explaining to do after the seventh and eighth innings.
Go get it Wednesday.
Jimmy writes the Bronx Pinstripes game recap after every Yankees game. Beat-reporter pacing, fan's heartbeat. He calls opposing players by last name and has no patience for dead-air innings.
