A Walk in the Park: Boston Booked Another October Date With New York
By Jess Henderson ·
Friday at Fenway started with packing lists and a weather map. The Red Sox were set for a doubleheader against the Cubs, told to pack for as many as eleven days on the road, and left waiting on a nor'easter that was already rewriting the weekend. By nightfall the bags were still going south, Chicago was swept, and Boston had booked something more specific than a flight: another October date with the Yankees.
Game 1 was the one that locked the door. The Cubs put Boston in a 3-0 hole early. Alec Gamboa lasted two innings and three runs. Then the bullpen took the rest of the afternoon and held it: Jake Bennett for 3.2 scoreless innings in his first career relief outing, Greg Weissert for 1.1, Raymond Burgos for two. That is a long stretch of outs when October is already sitting in the math.
Roman Anthony went 3-for-3 with two doubles, a triple, and a walk. First career game with three extra-base hits. He scored three times. Adley Rutschman's two-run single in the fifth tied it. Connor Wong's double in the seventh scored Anthony and put the Red Sox ahead for good, 4-3. With that win Boston locked the American League's No. 5 seed. The No. 4 seed was already wearing pinstripes.
Wild Card Series, best of three, all of it at Yankee Stadium: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday if necessary. Second straight year. Last October the Yankees won that series in three. This one will be the seventh Red Sox-Yankees postseason meeting, which is either history or just how these two keep finding each other when the calendar gets short.
Game 2 was shorter on scoring and longer on wind. They pushed the start up to stay ahead of the storm. Brayan Bello threw four shutout innings. Rookie Jedixson Paez came on for five more, three hits, four strikeouts, and his first big-league win. The game stayed 0-0 until the eighth, when Wilyer Abreu drove a two-run double into left-center, high off the Wall, scoring Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Jahmai Jones. Final: 2-0. Boston's eighteenth shutout of the year, the most for the club since 1972.
Somewhere in the middle of that nightcap, MLB confirmed what the forecast had threatened: Sunday's series finale would not be in Boston. Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg, 3:05 p.m. An unexpected home game moved to Florida because the weather refused to negotiate. The Red Sox finished the regular-season home book at 41-39 and left with the question of whether Fenway gets October baseball again for the first time since 2021. That answer runs through the Bronx first.
I keep noticing the doubles. Anthony to all fields in the opener. Wong's go-ahead ball in the seventh. Abreu's into the Wall in the nightcap. Fenway still rewards people who hit it where it is pitched and then keep running. The bullpen work in Game 1 was the other half of the same idea: hold the afternoon long enough for one more useful swing.
Manager Chad Tracy said he has been watching Red Sox-Yankees since he was a kid, and that there is always a little extra when they meet. He did not need a bigger speech. The schedule already wrote one. Bags packed for eleven days. A doubleheader against Chicago to close the home stand. A seed locked. A rematch waiting in New York.
October does not ask for a prettier sentence than that. Boston booked the date. The Yankees already know the address.