Analysis of the Boston Red Sox vs New York Yankees series

Thoughts from the Red Sox thrilling first series of the season

The Boston Red Sox opened the 2022 season with a three-game set in the Bronx against the Yankees, and as expected, it was a doozy. For 29 exhilarating innings, the Red Sox battled their archrivals in a series that was way too intense for Opening Weekend. When the dust was settled, the Yankees won two of the three games, but the Red Sox exited New York with some good feelings after stealing the last game.

Before we get into this article, I want to reiterate the fact that a baseball season is a marathon. As intense as these games were, they don’t mean much in the grand scheme of the end-of-the-year standings. In addition, three games aren’t going to tell us much about individual players. Kike Hernandez is not going to bat .000, and Alex Verdugo is not going to slug .727. Even the greatest of players are going to have their ebbs and flows, and three games do not make a season

With that being said, that does not mean that these three games were meaningless. Here are some thoughts and takeaways from the Red Sox opening series against their arch rivals.

Game One Recap: Yankees 6, Red Sox 5

It looked like the Red Sox were going to put this one out of reach early. After screaming at the umpires for starting the game four minutes late, Gerrit Cole got absolutely shelled. He walked leadoff hitter Kiké Hernández on four pitches, then allowed a two-run bomb to Rafael Devers. Xander Bogaerts nearly went back-to-back with a single off the top of the wall, and J.D Martinez brought him in with a double down the line. Cole limited the damage there, but a 3-0 lead seemed comfortable with ace Nathan Eovaldi on the mound.

Overall, Eovaldi looked sharp in his season debut. He struck out seven and walked just one in five strong innings, showing excellent command of all five of his pitches. Yet he made two critical mistakes: A middle-middle splitter to Anthony Rizzo and a hanging curveball to Giancarlo Stanton. Both of those pitches were sent into the seats, and Eovaldi left the game with the score tied at three.

The Red Sox struck back in the top of the sixth with their best situational hitting of the game. Bogaerts doubled down the line, Martinez moved him over with a ground ball to second base, and Alex Verdugo drove him in with a ground ball through the drawn-in infield. It was classic get-him-on, get-him-over, get-him-in, a move that has been  a staple of great Red Sox offenses through the years.

To protect their 4-3 lead, the Red Sox brought in their one reliable reliever, Garrett Whitlock. The right-hander easily retired six of the first seven hitters he faced, but D.J LeMahieu sent a ball over the right field fence (a fly ball that would have only been a home run in the Yankee stadium) to tie the score at four. The Red Sox escaped further trouble in the ninth when Hansel Robles struck out Stanton with two runners on, and the game headed into extra innings.

Before the inning, I tweeted that the Red Sox needed to score two runs to feel comfortable heading into the bottom of the 10th. They got off to a good start when Xander Bogaerts flared a ball into shallow left to give the Red Sox a 5-4 lead, but J.D Martinez chased a 2-0 pitch and bounced into a double play. Jake Diekman entered but was unable to close the game out, as Gleyber Torres’ sacrifice fly tied the game and sent the game into the 11th.

This time, the Red Sox were unable to capitalize on the ghost runner rule. Kevin King struck out Alex Verdugo and Trevor Story before getting Bobby Dalbec to ground out to shortstop. The game was pretty much over at that point, and Josh Donaldson’s RBI single off Kutter Crawford only accelerated the inevitable.

Red Sox/Yankees Game One Thoughts

• The biggest difference in this game was the bullpen. It was so abundantly obvious that the Red Sox only trusted Garrett Whitlock, and they were intent on ridding him until the end. When Whitlock was forced to exit, the rest of the relievers couldn’t shut the door. The Yankees, meanwhile, got quality outings from Aroldis Chapman, Wandy Peralta, Jonathan Loiasaga, and Kevin King, who combined to allow just one walk and strike out seven. This is something I feared going into the season, and in just the first game of the season, the difference was clear.
• In his Red Sox debut, Trevor Story went 0-5 with a punchout. The second baseman really looked like he was pressing at the plate. He did, however, make some nice plays in the field
• Matt Barnes is either really banged up, or he has lost all faith from his manager. Either way, it’s not good.
• I know there was some criticism of the way Alex Cora managed the game, but I had no problem with his decision-making. After all, there were really no good options considering the arms the Red Sox had in the bullpen, and Cora’s mixing and matching after Whitlock departed allowed the game to be extended into the 11th.
• As noted by the Twitter account Red Sox Stats, Whitlock’s slider during this outing had a very different look than in 2021. Whitlock’s slider averaged 87 MPH with 31 centimeters of vertical break, but averaged just 82 MPH with 44 centimeters of vertical break on Friday. The pitch was still very effective, but it remains to be seen if the trade-off of velocity for more movement was a smart one
• The Red Sox bullpen was not all that impressive on Friday to say to least, but one reliever who looked sharp was Ryan Brasier. 10 out of the 11 sliders were located in the down-and-away quadrant of the zone, and the pitch was over 100 RPMS greater than in 2021. Brasier is one of the few pitchers in the Red Sox bullpen with closing experience, and if he can continue to spot his slider like he did in this appearance, he can become one the team’s most trusted relievers.

Game Two Recap: Yankees 4, Red Sox 2

Like Game 1, the Red Sox jumped out to early lead on Saturday. Luis Severino was pretty impressive for a guy who hasn’t started a game since 2018, but he grooved a fastball to Alex Verdugo and paid for it. Verdugo’s two-run blast into the right field seats were the only runs Severino allowed on the day, but the Red Sox were able to work up his pitch count enough to knock him out before he could record an out in the fourth.

Nick Pivetta, meanwhile, was rolling. The right-handed faced the minimum through three innings, striking out four batters in the process. The second time through the order, however, was not nearly as successful. Josh Donaldson led off the fourth with a line drive to the left, and Aaron Judge nearly tied the score with a deep fly ball to the center field that was hauled in by a leaping Kiké Hernández. That kept the shutout in tact for the moment, but Anthony Rizzo followed with a bomb to right field that not even Hernandez could catch to tie the score at two.

The game was still tied in the sixth, where Pivetta made his next crucial mistake. He threw an absolute cement-mixer slider to Stanton, who ripped it over the left field wall to give the Yankees a 4-2 lead. Pivetta departed after retiring the next batter, allowing four runs over 5.2 innings.

The bigger problem was the Red Sox offense, who could do nothing against the Yankees bullpen. In six innings of shutout ball, a septuple of Yankees relievers held the Red Sox without a hit while striking out seven.  The last of those relievers, Aroldis Chapman, overwhelmed the bottom of the Red Sox order to put the finishing touches on a 4-2 win.

Red Sox/Yankees Game Two Thoughts

• This was a very Nick Pivetta performance. There were times where he looked fantastic, pitching off one of the best curveballs in the game and spotting his fastball and slider with precision. As the game went along, however, his command wavered, and he was forced to challenge hitters with his straight-as-an arrow fastball. It’s extremely difficult for Pivetta, who doesn’t have a cutter or use his changeup, to get lefties out, as Rizzo and Joey Gallo combined to reach base in their five of their six plate appearances
• Verdugo has looked really good so far this season. He reached base in three of his four plate appearances on this day and played more great defense in left field. It’s hard to know exactly how much Verdugo’s history of hamstring injuries have affected his game in his first two years in Boston, but he looks really healthy this season.
• As impressive as Devers’ home run against Cole was on Friday, his hit on Saturday may have been even more impressive. He smacked a backdoor slider from Severino off the wall in left field, missing a home run by a matter of feet. There are very few hitters in the game who could do that, and it was just another example of Devers proving how special he is.
• There’s no way to know for sure how Bogaerts’ hamstring injury affected him, but he looked terrible at the plate. He struck out in both plate appearances against Severino, and got schooled on three straight pitches by Clay Holmes. It’s probably nothing, and he looked much better on Sunday, but it’s something to take note of
• I’ve always liked Philips Valdez. He may not be flashy, but he pounds the zone and is able to generate ground-balls with his heavy sinker. There is always use for a pitcher like that.

Game Three Recap: Red Sox 4, Yankees 3

Desperately needing a win to avoid an embarrassing sweep at the hands of their archrivals, the Red Sox got off to another hot start on Sunday night. Devers and Bogaerts reached on back-to-back infield singles, and Martinez jumped on a hanging changeup to drive in Devers. After Bobby Dalbec was hit by a pitch, Christian Arroyo drove a deep fly to right field to give the Red Sox their third straight 2-0 lead.

Like the first two games, this lead would not hang up. Tanner Houck was all over the place, allowing six hits and three walks in just 3.1 innings. He was able to escape a bases-loaded jam in the bottom of the second when Aaron Hicks bounced into a double-play, but was not so lucky in the third. A double to Isiah-Kiner Falefa and a single to Luis Trevino chased Houck, and reliever Ryan Brasier’s poorly located fastball to Anthony Rizzo was sent into the left-center gap to drive in both runners and tie the score at three.

The Red Sox offense, once again, slowed down considerably after a red-hot start. Clarke Schmidt relieved starter Jordan Montgomery and retired the first five hitters rather easily. The sixth hitter, however, was the one that made the difference. Dalbec led off the sixth with his first home run of the year, giving the Red Sox a 4-3 lead headed into the bottom of the sixth.

Surprisingly, the Red Sox bullpen would not relinquish the lead. Each of the five relievers Alex Cora brought in were fantastic. After Brasier escaped the fourth without further damage, Crawford bounced back from Friday’s walk-off loss with two scoreless innings. Matt Strahm followed with a perfect seventh, and Robles bounced back from a leadoff walk to pitch a scoreless eight.

The true star of the game, however, was Jake Diekman. Facing the heart of the Yankees order, Diekman won a ten-pitch battle against Judge, overmatched  Stanton, and made Gallo look silly to strike out side and close out a 4-3 Red Sox win.

Final Red Sox/Yankees Thoughts

My big takeaway from this series is that these teams are incredibly evenly matched. Each of these games went down to the wire, and the Red Sox could have won all three had some more breaks bounced their way. The next sixteen games between these two teams are going to be a lot of fun.

I was also encouraged by the way the Red Sox hit the Yankees starters. Combined, Gerrit Cole, Luis Severino and Jordan Montgomery went just 9.1 innings and allowed eight runners. There is nobody in the Yankees rotation who the Red Sox fear, and that could prove critical moving forward.

If there’s one thing that concerns me, however, it’s how easily the Yankees relievers carved up the Red Sox lineup. Lucas Luetge, Chad Green, Jonathan Loiasaga and Aroldis Chapman combined to pitch 8.1 scoreless innings this series, allowing just one hit and striking out eight. Games one and two in particular showed New York’s game plan against Boston: Keep the game close early, feast off the Red Sox’s tiring starter, and bring in the big boys to close the game out.

There’s not much to be learned about the Yankees offense. Everything that happened in this series was expected: Stanton owns the Red Sox, Rizzo is a perfect fit in the Yankees lineup and Yankee Stadium, Judge has turned into a complete hitter, and Gallo is a strikeout machine. If there’s one thing that was proven in this series, it’s that the Red Sox need to be able to retire Kiner-Falefa and Higashioka to prevent the top of the order from coming up with runners on base.

Finally, I want to give credit to the Red Sox bullpen, who allowed just one run in 15 innings. I was critical of the bullpen all offseason long, and while I still believe they should have added a true closer, this series was a good start towards shutting me up.

Overall, I’m content with the result of the series. Obviously I would have preferred that the Red Sox have won the series, but they were competitive in all three games in a tough environment, and the win in the last game salvaged some momentum headed into their three-game series in Detroit.