Cody Bellinger's three-run HR in six-run sixth inning helps Yankees oust Red Sox
After throttling the Red Sox in his 6 1⁄3 innings Tuesday night, Cam Schlittler didn’t luxuriate in the Yankees’ Game 1 victory for long.
“The job’s not done,” he said.
Max Fried, and a second straight explosion from the Yankees' offense, finished it Wednesday night.
Getting six strong innings from Fried and home runs from Luis Garcia Jr. and Cody Bellinger that highlighted a 14-hit attack, the Yankees swept the Red Sox out of the American League Wild Card Series with a 9-2 victory in front of a thunderous sellout crowd of 49,004 at the Stadium.
The Yankees, who beat the Red Sox in three relatively taut games in the Wild Card Series last year before outscoring them 18-2 and outhitting them 26-7 in these two games, will face the AL East champion Tampa Bay Rays in an American League Division Series. Game 1 is Saturday at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, with Game 2 on Monday.
“I told those guys,” Aaron Boone, fresh from the champagne and beer shower celebration in the clubhouse, “we play like that, we have a chance to beat anybody.”
The Yankees were flying high after last year’s victory over the Red Sox, but their October ended in a thud — a four-game loss to the AL East champion Blue Jays in the ALDS.
“We’ve got a lot more work to do,” Bellinger said.
Garcia, the club’s headline trade deadline acquisition because of his bat-to-ball skills, had three of the Yankees' 14 hits, including a fourth-inning homer off former Yankee Sonny Gray to open the scoring. Bellinger’s three-run homer capped a six-run sixth that made it 8-1.
“That was a cool moment,” Bellinger — the son of former Yankee Clay Bellinger, who threw the ceremonial first pitch Wednesday night to Cody — said of the blast that sent the Stadium into celebration mode.
“I feel like I was able to enjoy that one. Just a home game in Yankee Stadium, it’s a really fun atmosphere. It’s fun to play. And hopefully we get many, many more this month.”
Bellinger (four RBIs), Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Trent Grisham, part of the cadre of eight lefthanded hitters Boone stacked against the righthanded Gray, had two hits each. Rookie shortstop George Lombard Jr., whose single drove in the first run in the six-run sixth, was the only righty hitter in the lineup.
As has been the case throughout much of the season, the win was about pitching.
Fried, 2-1 with a 1.24 ERA in six starts for the Yankees against the Red Sox, including 1-0 with a 0.77 ERA in two starts this season, continued his mastery against his team’s fiercest rival.
The lefthander allowed one run and three hits, including a two-out homer by Willson Contreras in the sixth that cut the Red Sox' deficit to 2-1.
“Being able to celebrate with your teammates after a playoff series win, it doesn’t get old,” Fried said. “This is what we start practicing in February [in spring training] for. This is where we want to be. So just about playing our game, having fun and hopefully we’ve got a couple more of these that we can do.”
Gray, 15-16 with a 4.51 ERA in 2017-18 with the Yankees after being acquired at the trade deadline in ’17, was coming off a 2026 season in which he went 18-5 with a 2.72 ERA, including 1-0 with a 1.98 ERA in two starts against the Yankees.
He pitched well again on Wednesday night, allowing six hits and no walks in 4 2/3 innings. He was charged with two runs, one of which scored after he left the game.
Boston manager Chad Tracy, who pulled Game 1 starter Payton Tolle too early and was burned by his bullpen on Tuesday night, was burned again Wednesday night. Lefthanders Erik Miller and Garrett Crochet and righthander Garrett Whitlock allowed a combined seven runs, eight hits and three walks in 1 2/3 innings, and Miller also allowed one of Gray's runners to score.
In Game 1, the Red Sox bullpen allowed eight runs, seven hits and four walks in 3 1/3 innings. Boston relievers gave up 15 runs, 15 hits and seven walks in five innings.
“Just so proud of these boys up and down the lineup,” said captain Aaron Judge, whose right calf strain kept him off the roster in the wild-card round but who remains hopeful, though it remains a long shot, of being available for the Division Series. “You can go through the whole pitching staff, what our starters did for us was huge, handed it off to our bullpen. Just amazing grit out of this team. Was kind of a stalemate there for a little bit, but then the offense breaks out.”
With runners on first and third and two outs In the fifth, Tracy replaced Gray with lefthander Miller, just as he had replaced an effective Tolle with Miller in Game 1. On Tuesday, Miller allowed a 423-foot homer into Monument Park by Ben Rice to make the score 2-0. This time he allowed an RBI single to right by Bellinger.
Against Boston's lefthanded pitchers, the Yankees' lefthanded hitters were 7-for-13 in Game 1 and 4-for-5 to begin Game 2 for a total of 11-for-18 through six innings. They concluded that stretch by going 9-for-10, including 7-for-7 at one point.
The Yankees' six-run rally in the sixth began in unusual fashion.Spencer Jones struck out against Crochet on a breaking ball in the dirt but hustled to first and barely beat the throw of catcher Adley Rutschman on the wild pitch, helped by Contreras' poor footwork as he caught the throw at the back of the base.
Jones stole second and went to third when Rutschman's throw went into centerfield and scored on Lombard's single. Chisholm singled and Grisham bunted for a single to load the bases and knock out Crochet. With Whitlock pitching, a sacrifice fly by Wells and an RBI groundout by Ryan McMahon made it 5-1, and Bellinger's three-run homer gave the Yankees an 8-1 lead.
Nick Sogard's two-out homer off Will Warren in the top of the seventh was countered by Wells' RBI single in the bottom of the inning.
“I think we’re in a really good spot,” Schlittler said. “On a good roll at the right time.”
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
