Yankees Dominate Red Sox 16-1: Playoff Implications Explained

The Red Sox and the Yankees just were at each other's throats. The Yankees won 16 to one yesterday. They take the season series seven, seven, six, which gives the Yankees the tie break if they were to tie. That's not going to happen in my mind. These teams faced off in last year's wildcard series. They could very well meet again. The Red Sox have a big lead on the third wildcard. So unless things really go south for Boston, they're going to wind up being the second wildcard. The Yankees will be the first wildcard. They're not going to catch the rays. And so these two teams will probably face off. And the Yankees wound up winning the game 16 to one yesterday. And they took the series three games to one. The anger from Red Sox Nation today about a catch that was ruled a hit by Sadon Rafaela in in center field yesterday is driving me crazy because I understand why folks are angry. But the Red Sox bullpen got torched on Saturday and it got torched on Sunday. I mean, Ranger Suarez gives up a three run home run in the wake of that call. It was two nothing. And then Ranger Suarez winds up getting into more trouble and gives up a three run home run. It was five nothing. And the Red Sox offense is what people should be mad about. I don't think it's one call. It's such a bunch of baby mentality to be crying about one call that changed everything. Oh, protest. This game's a joke. The Red Sox got robbed. It's one game out of 162. And yes, I know it's a huge, a huge game. Yankees won the season series. And the Red Sox are now four games behind in the loss column, which means they got to make up five games in the loss column to wind up winning that second wildcard. And there's 26 games left. It's not happening. OK, Red Sox are not catching the Yankees. If they had won yesterday, there would have been two games back and they would have had a shot to catch the Yankees. But unless the Yankees really fall apart and Mike Stanton's not coming back. I don't know when Aaron Judge is coming back sometime in September. We think he's going to come back. But the Yankees pitching is tremendous. And if they get any offense whatsoever, the Yankees are a really big problem. And the Red Sox offense just isn't good. It hasn't been good all year. OK, you're asking guys to play above their ability and you're asking them to play in big moments. And that's what happened in April, in May, when they came out of the shoot. Red Sox offense was awful. Then they caught fire. Everyone couldn't miss the baseball in July, and they won on a 27 to three run over 30 games. It was ridiculous. Yet when we get to August in September and the games start to get more important and the eyes start to shift back onto the Red Sox and everyone starts paying attention again, the pressure mounts. And so they get Trevor Story back yesterday. They get Roman Anthony back yesterday. They scored one run in three games against the Yankees. They had zero, one or two runs. They won the first game of the doubleheader six to nothing. Great. You scored six runs. Even that's not that impressive. This offense is not potent enough to overcome any bad start. Like if they get any rocky pitching and the pitching in April and May was bad for Boston, it got very good in May, June and July. And that's why they're going to make the postseason. They've got really good pitching. And at some point, Garrett Crochet may come back and pitch out of the bullpen to help them. But this team offensively has always been a problem. And it showcased itself again over the weekend against the Yankees. The Yankees are without their two big bats, and they still have more offense one to nine than the Red Sox do. And so this ultimately is not a team that's going to contend for a World Series. I mean, making the playoffs is amazing. But the call in center field with Rafaela, he's still mad about after the game. He's still talking about it. Like, let it go, man. It's a bad call. OK, you caught the ball. I get it. You caught the ball. But it was two nothing when that call happened. They lost the game 16 to one. Explain to me how one call in center field led to 16 runs or 14 more runs by the Yankees. It didn't. Did it change the game? Yeah. Were the Red Sox going to win that game? Probably not. 16 to one. I don't really care about the final score. I care more about what's coming out of that locker room after losing three or four to the Yankees and pretty much guaranteeing that the Red Sox are going to be back at Yankee Stadium in the wildcard series. They got to go there and find a way to win two games. I don't know if that's possible, given the mentality in the offensive bats the Red Sox are going to pull up with. So this is a massive overreaction by a lot of fair weather Red Sox fans that just woke up and realized, oh, my God, the team's good. And now you walk into Yankees in Yankee Stadium and you lose three or four and you're stomping around like a two year old yelling and screaming because of a bad call in center field. Get over it. Seriously, get over it and move off of it, because that's not why they lost three or four. Their bullpen wasn't good. Their pitching wasn't good, and their offense was pathetic over the course of a four game series. That's far more concerning than an umpire blowing a call for a catch that was made. Saddam Rafaeli did make that catch. In my opinion, most people's opinion, you watch it. It was a catch. It didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. It didn't matter.