October 2, 2025

68 thoughts on “Yankees.com: No rest for Yanks: Wild Card Series vs. Red Sox begins Tuesday”

  2. Tied for the best record in the AL is pretty damned good.
    That’s with them being better than the other time AND overcoming being constantly undermined by Boone, game after game.

    I’m looking forward to this series. (Apparently Judge and I are the only ones!)

  3. Judge was stuck on… was it 59 or 60?… for like over a month the year he broke the all-time record. He could have had closer to 70.
    It’s hard to do, and Raleigh couldn’t do it, and he still did something incredible. Congratulations to Raliegh on an amazing feat, and to Judge for again being the best player in baseball!

  5. Yes.
    I ran the math several times 5 or 6 days ago and the chances were not in his favor, even with Colorado and other factors.
    But not crazy against him.
    It’s hard to do, and even Judge almost choked it away.
    But he didn’t. Three cheers for Aaron Judge!

  6. I feel good about a two game sweep of Boston. The Yankees are a better team and although they have to go through those Sox pitchers….the Sox have to deal with the Yankees starters too.

    1. I feel good about a two game sweep of Boston. The Yankees are a better team and although they have to go through those Sox pitchers….the Sox have to deal with the Yankees starters too.

      The Yankees are pretty clearly the better team overall, and if it was a seven game series, I’d take the Yankees, but Crochet is just SO good, and that’s half the wins needed right there, ya know?

    2. After Crochet in G1, G2 starter Bello has allowed a 172/260/250 in three starts against the Yankees in 2025.

  7. Crochet 3-0 2.9 era vs Yankees
    Bello 5-4 2.35
    Whitlock 5-1 1.77
    Chapman 0-1 1.80 and a 1.17 era, 0.7 WHIP for the season
    Giolito 3-3 4.46 if a game 3

    Better not be trailing after 7.

  10. Hell, if Goldy wants to come back for a couple of million, I wouldn’t even HATE that.

    It will be interesting what they do with CF/1B. It’s a little tempting to see if Bellinger is willing to stay for a “discount,” since he could eventually shift to 1B. But I’m a bit concerned with his underlying numbers. I’d worry that as Bellinger’s tools begin to decline his top tier baseball skills/IQ will not be enough.

    Will Grisham’s breakout be enough to command a big FA contract, or can the Yankees keep him for a reasonable amount. I’d feel slightly better about his next few years than Bellinger.

    2. I would worry about either Belli or Grisham taking the Ellsbury/Hicks trajectory, and just falling off after they turn 30, even if they can stay on the field.
      I do like Belli’s chip-on-shoulder attitude and think it might drive him in a way that Ellsbury/Hicks never really seemed driven. But I kinda want to see whether Dominguez can actually play CF if given the chance.
      Spencer Jones can play LF (or RF, when Judge eventually goes to 1B/DH).

    3. “Jones”
      That would be sweet, but I think signing up for that now would be getting a wee bit ahead of yourself.
      If one were confident about Tucker, I’d agree – Tucker and Dominguez over Bellinger and Grisham.

    4. Good point, Pete. Tucker is starting from a higher peak, so even with some age-related decline, he’s still a better bet than Belli (and definitely than Grisham). I still think Dominguez has All-star potential if healthy, and I am extremely curious about Jones learning from Judge every day. Not expecting Jones to play like Judge – couldn’t ask it of anyone, Judge is once in a lifetime. But I think Jones may benefit from Judge as a similar-sized role model, and am optimistic that Judge could be a good teacher, given how he has worked over the years and has improved from a 30% K rate to 23.6%, from “.179” to a batting title.

  11. Not a close call to sit his hottest hitter says the 22-23 manager
    Aaron Boone said it was not a close call to start Austin Wells over Ben Rice in Game 1. “Wells is really good back there… Just because Rice isn’t in there doesn’t mean he doesn’t impact the game in a big way.”
    Last 7 days 435/1400

    2. That’s in keeping with his track record of sitting hot hitters. He’s clueless.

      I have zero expectations of this series ending any other way than with Boone losing it singlehandedly.

    3. Boone, if you’re reading this – we all know you can do it. You have nothing to prove to us.

    2. Bochy would be great, but he’s not the type to just carry out orders from FO idiots the way Boone does.
      Melvin would be compliant enough to get hired, and less abjectly stupid than Boone. But he wouldn’t be what this team needs, which is more of a drill sergeant.

      I’m kind of coming around to the idea of Posada as a manager…

  14. I’m less pessimistic than y’all but it’s true that Boston feels like the hardest opponent, especially with how Detroit has fallen off. Itsgreat though to have all three games in the Bronx. I actually think that’s worth quite a bit.

    And with how they’ve been playing I don’t mind the quick turnaround. Here we go!

    P.S. – I’m glad we’re going into this with the best complaining any team can muster. when it comes to commentary RLYW is the clutchiest.

    1. On the bright side, if they DO beat these guys, that really is their toughest competition.

      But, well, they’re not going to beat these guys. At least with Giolito out, the Red Sox probably won’t make the World Series.

    1. That probably won’t matter for THIS series, since the Red Sox will win in two games, but that is a huge blow for them going forward. Early has been good, but EXTREMELY small sample size, and Harrison isn’t that good.

  17. Ran my numbers. I have it as virtually a coinflip. NYY +102/BOS -102, both full game and first 5.

    Sharp books opened Boston anywhere from +120 to +110 and they’ve been getting bet down. +110 to +105 in the market.

    I think tomorrow there’ll probably be some Yankee money coming in pushing it closer back toward the open. If it drifts north of +115 I think there’s a good enough edge there to fire for value. You definitely won’t get that number for the F5.

    1. Yeah, as pessimistic as I am about the Yankees’ chances, I certainly can’t say that they have NO chance at winning this one. “All” they need is for Fried to match Crochet for six innings, and then hope the Yankees squeak home a run in the 7th against Justins Wilson and Slaten, before Whitlock and Chapman shut them down for two innings.

      You know, real easy stuff.

      Or, in the alternative, Stanton hitting a home run off of Crochet and they win, like, 2-1 (Stanton is the only guy I have any faith in against Crochet. Rosario is close, though).

      I was MUCH more pessimistic in 2004, 2018 and 2021 than I am now. In 2004 and 2018, the Red Sox were plainly the better team, and in 2021, the Yankees were stupidly starting an injured Gerrit Cole in a one-game playoff for some dumb fucking reason.

    2. “Fried to match Crochet for six innings”
      Don’t see that as any “harder” than the Red Sox asking Crochet to match Fried for six inningx.

    3. Me reading Sic’s comment must be what its like for my dad to listen to me talk about advanced baseball metrics.

      “RBI’s were good enough for John McGraw.”

  18. A good exercise for the old RLYW – how much does home field really mean?
    You could just use park factors, but better would be to account for how they’d apply to the specific make-up of these two teams.
    You could look at home and away records, but maybe you’d also want to account for the records of the teams faced, and even the characteristics of those teams vis-a-vis the park to establish expectations.

    2. I think at some point you’re just slicing the data too thin. Park factors themselves are calculated from three seasons of results.

    3. But not by team characteristics. A stadium great for left-handed hitters might be great for a right-handed team with reverse splits, or good power to the opposite field, or a bunch of other things.
      I’m pretty sure I’ve seen analyses like that.

  19. Twelve teams in the playoffs and the only two I definitely don’t want to see celebrating at the end are the Red Sox and Dodgers. So bank on Red Sox – Dodgers

    1. I was surprised by how much the projections favor the Yankees here, basically 65-45. But fangraphs also has the Yankees as a 100-win team, best in baseball by 5 wins, according to their baseruns stat.

    3. Yeah, the difference between Pythagorean and actual W-L is a decent measure of managerial influence plus roster construction. Could call it the Cashman-Boone Effect.

  21. Kirschner “Yankees go with 14 position players and 12 pitchers.

    Paul Blackburn is on, Luis Gil is off. Will Warren is on.
    J.C. Escarra is on, Austin Slater is off.Yarbrough off is surprising.

    2. The Sox destroyed Yarbrough when they faced him.

      As for Escarra, that allows you to pinch hit Rice for Goldy and Dominguez for Wells, and still have a catcher and first baseman without having to move Belli from the outfield, where he’s more valuable defensively.

    5. Right. And that catcher they have will be worse than any of their current two catchers… and no one outing by anyone should mean much of anything in a sport of statistics.

  22. P Goldschmidt (R) 1B
    A Judge (R) RF
    C Bellinger (L) LF
    G Stanton (R) DH
    A Rosario (R) 2B
    T Grisham (L) CF
    A Volpe (R) SS
    A Wells (L) C
    J Caballero (R) 3B

    1. They don’t count post season stats with the regular season stats. So I imagine that is the reason.

    2. Yes, of course, you’re right.
      But the point of putting the stats on GD is to make following the game more meaningful.
      This is the opposite.

  27. I find I’m really looking forward to this!
    Those NYA-BOS series in the day were the best baseball we’ll probably ever know.
    And today’s match-up is awesome.

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