Yankees 5, Red Sox 3

 

Bello gave up four runs, Fried gave up two. Bregman and Duran broke out of recent slumps and each hit solo homers, but Story, Refsnyder, and Narváez continue to struggle. Anthony, Abreu, and Mayer are still out with injuries.

With this loss, the Red Sox fall 2½ back from the Yankees and will most likely finish the season in third place. Toronto won last night and have a 5½-game lead over Boston in the AL East. 

But even worse, Seattle also won last night (they're 8-2 in their last 10 games) and are tied with the Sox for the third and last Wild Card spot. 

To say tonight's game is a must-win is an understatement. Not only do we want to avoid the indignity of a home sweep by the hated Yankees, but after tonight's game, but there's absolutely no room for error left if we want to make the post-season. The Sox have a dozen games left after this, and three of those are against Toronto (86-62) and three against Detroit (84-65), while the Yankees don't have any games left on their schedule with teams above .500. Seattle still has Houston (81-68) and the Dodgers (83-65), and it looks like the Sox' only path to a playoff berth is to, of course, win some more games, but to also hope for a Mariners collapse down the stretch. 

Fortunately, it's Crochet Day, and Garrett (15-5, 2.57) takes the mound against the Yanks'  Will Warren This is a rematch of the August 23rd game in the Bronx, which Crochet and the Sox won, 12-1, over Warren and the Yankees (Warren gave up five earned runs). Overall, Warren is 1-1 against the Sox this season, while Crochet is 2-0 against the Yanks. 

But this is the way it goes every goddamn season, isn't it? We enter the month of September in a pretty strong position, tank, and then lose a crucial series to New York. We may have finally broken the Curse of the Bambino, but the Yankees remain our kryptonite team. By the way, if the season ended with the standings the way they are today, we would face the Yankees in New York for the three-game Wild Card series. 

Prediction: I don't pretend to know the outcome of tonight's game, but I will predict that the ESPN announcers will fawn and swoon over the Yankees the entire game, verbally fellate Aaron Judge even when he's not at bat, and interview, say, the New York assistant equipment manger's ex-girlfriend when the Red Sox are at bat. It will be disgusting and I advise you to turn off the volume and listen to the WEEI broadcast instead.    

Yankees suck!