1. I will never not enjoy a Yankees win over the Red Sox, but wow, these Red Sox suck. It’s sad, really. Not sad in the sense that I feel bad for them, but more sad in the sense that they are a disgrace and have ruined the rivalry. Their lineup is anchored by Trevor Story and, I guess, Wilyer Abreu? Their ace leads the league in earned runs allowed and hit by pitches. There is no one on the injured list they’re waiting for to return. They are outside the top 10 in payroll, behind teams like the Tigers and the small-market Padres and their fans have been chanting “SELL THE TEAM” to the owner who ended their 86-year championship drought. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been glorious to watch their demise, but Yankees-Red Sox certainly doesn’t feel like Yankees-Red Sox when my biggest fear as a Yankees fan is that the Red Sox’ offense will draw a couple of walks and follow them up with multiple seeing-eye singles through the infield to score runs.
2. The humiliation of getting completely shut down by Luis Gil (whose velocity was down on his fastball and the break on his off-speed pitches was in decline on Tuesday as he only got three swings-and-misses) was followed by Max Fried dominating the Red Sox for eight shutout innings without nearly his best stuff. Fried was so off on Wednesday that he resorted to pitching out of the stretch for most of the game because of a lack of command out of the windup. He still managed to get through eight scoreless on 100 pitches with nine strikeouts.
3. “Playing the Red Sox is always a little different, there’s a little bit more of an intensity to it,” Fried said. “We want to play our brand of baseball to try to win as many games as we possibly can.”
Last season, the Yankees started 1-8 against the Red Sox and finished 4-9. Their play against the Red Sox (and the Blue Jays) is the reason they lost out on winning the division, forcing them to play in the Wild Card Series and forcing Fried to start Game 1 of the Wild Card Series on extra rest instead of Game 1 of the ALDS on extra, extra rest. In the last two nights, the Yankees have as many wins against the Red Sox as they had in their first 10 games against them last season.
4. Fried taking care of business against the Red Sox is how I expect him to take care of business against arguably the weakest lineup in the league. The only team with less runs scored in the AL is the Royals, but at least they have Bobby Witt Jr., Maikel Garcia, Vinnie Pasquantino and the chance Salvador Perez will run into one every once in a while. The Red Sox have hit 13 home runs in 24 games, four fewer than Aaron Judge and Ben Rice have combined.
5. The old adage that a game is never over at Fenway Park until the final out has been destroyed by this Red Sox team. Wednesday’s game was over in the first inning after Amed Rosario connected for a three-run blast over the Green Monster. It was going to take the Red Sox stringing together a lot of hits to score three runs off Fried, which they never did.
“He’s had some huge, huge games for us,” Giancarlo Stanton said of Rosario. “He directly gave us some wins.”
Rosario is single-handedly responsible for the April 7 win over the Athletics and now the April 22 win over the Red Sox, at least from an offensive perspective.
6. It’s a good thing Rosario sent that ball to the moon because the Yankees didn’t do much after that, scoring just one run over the final 8 1/3 innings. Rosario drove in a fourth run with a sacrifice fly in the third and that was it. A night after Stanton was responsible for three of the Yankees’ four runs, Rosario was responsible for all four. Rosario 4, Red Sox 1.
Paul Goldschmidt was back in the lineup against a lefty starter batting leadoff, but went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts. Judge had a single and two walks. Cody Bellinger went 0-for-4 with a strikeout. Stanton had a pair of doubles. Randal Grichuk and Jose Caballero each had a single. Jazz Chisholm had another 0-for-4 night and Austin Wells another 0-for-3. Ben Rice, Trent Grisham and Ryan McMahon all went hitless as well, going 0-for-4 with three strikeouts.
7. Everything is great when the starting pitching is as good as it has been of late, but not every opponent is going to be the Royals and Red Sox, again the two worst offenses in the AL. The bottom half of the order needs to start doing something, anything, especially Chisholm who is as close to reaching a 50/50 season on the home run side as you and me are. For as rough as Chisholm’s start to last season seemed to be through April, he still had three doubles and seven home runs to go with his abysmal .181/.304/.410 slash line. As of now, Chisholm has five doubles, no home runs and is at .173/.264/.235. Every Yankee other than McMahon has a higher OPS+ than Chisholm, but at least McMahon won them the game last Friday against the Royals. Chisholm has done nothing, other than make excuses about the weather (and then not hit in Tampa or when it was 85 degrees every day during the Angels series), wrongly challenge called strikes and pop up balls in the infield.
8. It seems like Grichuk is going to be the one to lose his roster spot when Anthony Volpe returns, but I’m not so sure it shouldn’t be Goldschmidt. Obviously, Goldschmidt is a borderline Hall of Famer, was a Yankee last year and is making $4 million to Grichuk’s $2.5 million, but Goldschmidt plays one position, doesn’t play it nearly as well as he once did and his season to date has been one three-run home run off of George Kirby three weeks ago. After starting out 0-for-13 with a walk, Grichuk is 5-for-13 with three doubles in his last five games. His at-bats look improved and he’s hitting the ball hard. Goldschmidt was washed after last April and aside from his 10-pitch at-bat against Ranger Suarez to lead off Wednesday’s game (which resulted in an out), he’s been so bad since his home run in Seattle. Grichuk will get picked up by another team if his Yankees tenure comes to an end when Volpe is back. Goldschmidt won’t play Major League Baseball again, just like the Yankees’ last failed, veteran first baseman signing.
9. The Red Sox couldn’t score against Gil and couldn’t do anything against Fried and now they will face Cam Schlittler who shut them down in the win-or-go-home Game 3 in the Wild Card Series. There’s a chance Schlittler overthrows early on Thursday night with how pumped up he will be to face the Red Sox again, given everything that has gone on with their fan base against him on social media over the last six months, but even if he does, I can’t envision the Red Sox getting to him. The Red Sox will counter with Payon Tolle, a 23-year-old left-hander who has been in Triple-A this season. In 16 1/3 innings in the majors last season, Tolle allowed 26 baserunners and five home runs and pitched to a 6.06 ERA.
10. This is the lineup the Yankees should deploy in the series finale:
Amed Rosario, 3B
Aaron Judge, RF
Cody Bellinger, CF
Giancarlo Stanton, DH
Ben Rice, 1B
Randal Grichuk, LF
Jazz Chisholm, 2B
Jose Caballero, SS
Austin Wells, C
Give me that lineup, give me a third straight dominant starting pitching performance and give me a three-game sweep of the Red Sox heading into the weekend.
Last modified: Apr 23, 2026
