In just a few hours, the Yankees and Red Sox will kick off the American League Wild Card Game at Fenway Park in Boston. The winner heads to Tampa to take on the Rays in the ALDS, which starts on Thursday.
As you’re waiting for the game to begin, take some time to catch up with our content over the last two days. Bobby offered his thoughts on Monday and I penned the preview earlier today. Then, use this post’s comments section to discuss tonight’s game. We’ll also tweet through the action on Twitter.
Lineups along with a few pregame notes after the jump.
New York Yankees
- Anthony Rizzo, 1B
- Aaron Judge, RF
- Giancarlo Stanton, DH
- Joey Gallo, LF
- Gleyber Torres, 2B
- Brett Gardner, CF
- Gio Urshela, 3B
- Kyle Higashioka, C
- Andrew Velazquez, SS
RHP Gerrit Cole
Boston Red Sox
- Kyle Schwarber, DH
- Kiké Hernández, CF
- Rafael Devers, 3B
- Xander Bogaerts, SS
- Alex Verdugo, LF
- Hunter Renfroe, RF
- Kevin Flawecki, C
- Bobby Dalbec, 1B
- Christian Arroyo, 2B
RHP Nathan Eovaldi
News & Notes
- The Yankees DFA’d LHP Andrew Heaney and RHP Brody Koerner in order to make room for OF Greg Allen and C Rob Brantly on today’s roster.
- In addition to Allen and Brantly, Rougned Odor, Tyler Wade, and Gary Sánchez round out the bench.
- The Yankees are carrying eleven relievers, with just one stretched out starter (Nestor Cortes). In a mild surprise, Corey Kluber (who’s on full rest) was left off. Domingo Germán appears to be the one who nabbed his spot. Remember, this roster is just for this game, so changes can be made to the ALDS squad.
- JD Martinez is not on Boston’s roster. He suffered an ankle injury while touching second base on his jog out to right field over the weekend. Yes, you read that right. Chris Sale, who started Sunday, isn’t on it either. Here’s the rest of Boston’s roster.
First pitch is scheduled for 8:08pm ET on ESPN and ESPN2 (Statcast broadcast). WFAN, WADO, and ESPN have the radio calls. Enjoy the game, everyone.
Bartholomew Meshir
Great a blowout. Just enough for the Boone apologists to say the coaches don’t play the game. Four more years! Four more years!
MikeD
I’m unaware of any Boone apologists here. Just the opposite.
Tony
Can we clean house yet?
Cashman and Boone need to go. Bring in Theo.
Anthony Rizzeddardo
That send by Nevin was the worst I ever saw. One solace from this loss is it should cost Boone and the entire coaching staff their jobs.
Rex Nolan
This coaching staff needs to go! Just leave mid game.
Bart
Fire Nevin. Replace this pathetic coaching staff
Anthony Rizzeddardo
As I’ve said many times, Gerrit Cole is not an ace in the mold of a Max Scherzer. Watch what Max does tomorrow. He’ll carry the Dodgers into the LDS because that’s what aces do. They don’t get pulled in the 3rd inning. Eovaldi is more of an ace than Cole. This was a bad bad contract for an average pitcher at best. If Sevy doesn’t regain that ace form next year it’s going to be a long long time before the Yankees have a true ace ever again.
Anthony Rizzeddardo
And the umps aren’t helping. Both Gallo and Higgy’s swings were checked. Terrible calls.that better go both ways.
Anthony Rizzeddardo
Eovaldi is sharp. We were likely stealing signs last time and that’s why we hit him. Cole is his 6 ERA self and Boone will let him give up 4-5 runs before going to German. I’ve seen enough, our season ends tonight.
Anthony Rizzeddardo
Boone needs to get Sevy warming immediately. Cole doesn’t have it. Keep it at 2-0. And that damn wall blocked it from being 2-1.
Anthony Rizzeddardo
Biggest game of the century, Bobby. I love the squid at SS and Greg Allen on the bench to give us some speed and clutch hitting. I’d rather see Gardy leading off but Rizzo also sees a lot of pitches and works counts. And I woulda protected Stanton with Gleyber. They won’t pitch to Stanton after he killed them last time.
Lucky us that the game is on ESPN tonight because Arod is by far the best analyst in the game. Last game Alex said something that I’ve been saying for years, homeruns kill rallies. With a runner on 3rd and less than 2 outs I’d rather a guy hit a sac fly or soft grounder to end. The worst thing you can do there is hit a home run and score 2 runs instead of 1. We would be wise to remember that tonight.
MG309
Since Sanchez’ big 2 HR game on September 5th, he’s 5 for 58 with 3 HRs and 5 RBI along with 21 K’s.
In Higgy’s last 54 ABs (since mid-August), he’s 12-54 with 3 HR and 12 RBI along with 16 K’s.
So Higgy has more 2.4X morehits, same number of HR’s, 2.4X the number of RBI’s, and is K’ing 20% less than Sanchez, who barely has time to step to the plate before the count is 0-2 and he’s either flailing at sliders 2′ out of the zone or taking fast balls down the middle for strike 3.
And let’s not even talk about the difference in defense behind the plate where Sanchez allows pitches to get by him at the rate of a bad backup goalie facing the Lightning.
How anyone can be wondering why Higgy is catching, with any pitcher on the mound, is beyond me…
Terry from LA
12 for 54 ain’t exactly Thurman Munson numbers. Higgy can’t throw either. Agree with blocking and he’s going to catch Cole tonight anyway. Hope you’re right. Sanchez clobbers the sox. Go Yanks!
MiG309
I guess it’s too difficult to look up stats, Sanchez OPS vs Sox this year is about .650 with 1 Hr and 3 RBIs in about 50 ABS, Yogi is spinning in his grave after reading that
And no, Higgy is at best a backup but Sanchez is no longer playing at a major league level, period.
MG309
Sanchez doesn’t clobber the Sox 1 HR and 3 RBI in 50+ ABS this year OPS around 650, I guess facts no longer count
HiggyLOL
Just to comment on “Sanchez allows pitches to get by him at the rate of a bad backup goalie facing the Lightning”
Gary: 8 passed balls in 879 innings, or one every 110 innings.
Higashioka: 5 passed balls in 519 innings, or one every 86 innings.
Statistically, Higgy lets more get passed.
MG309
Yankees valuing infield defense over the once every 15-20 game HR threat and K machine known as Roughned Odor, I like it.