Yankees stomp Red Sox 8-3 in crucial AL Wild Card battle at Fenway
BOSTON — Gerrit Cole was not thinking ahead Friday night. The Yankees ace knows these final nine games will determine not only if the Bombers get into the playoffs, but where they will play. The Yankees would like to make sure this critical three-game series is the last time they come to Fenway in 2021.
With three hits, including a home run each from Giancarlo Stanton and Gleyber Torres and a solid start from Cole, the Yankees overpowered the Red Sox 8-3 in front of 36,026 in Fenway, the place the Yankees would like to avoid next month.
“Certainly, it’s the highest goal that we can achieve,” Cole said of passing the Red Sox and hosting the Wild Card game. “So that’s where our sights are set. For me personally, I think that I haven’t gotten quite to the point where I’m really pondering that. I still have some work to do and maybe one, maybe two more starts. So I think that ideally we would like to win and that’s what we’re shooting for and so that we can host the game.”
The Yankees (87-67) have won four straight and are now just a game behind the Red Sox (88-66) for the top Wild Card spot and the chance to host the game. They now have a two-game lead over the Blue Jays, who lost to the Twins Friday night.
“We’re definitely aware but if we take care of business it doesn’t matter,” Stanton said of scoreboard watching. “If we get the win ourselves then we’re in the best position possible that we can control. So we secure our win and then see what everyone else is doing.”
Stanton was doing what he does best — crushing at Fenway.
Stanton hit his 32nd homer of the season and drove in four runs on the night. He’s driven in 14 runs in his last 12 games and has 16 home runs since Aug. 3. He is hitting .373 with four home runs and 16 RBI in 22 career games at Fenway.
Torres hit his eighth home run of the season in the seventh, it was his fourth against the Red Sox. Torres had three hits on the night, extending his hitting streak to 10 games.
“After my time on IL, those three weeks, I saw a lot of videos of myself from 2018-19 and kind of remembered myself and what I do in those years when I had success at the plate,” Torres said. “I try to get a really good at-bat every time I go to the home plate. I don’t think about the success, I think about how I feel about each pitch every at-bat. I mean, right now everything is going well.”
Friday was the Yankees’ 16th straight game with a home run and their 10th in that span with multiple homers. This was only the 20th time this season the Bombers had scored at least eight runs. It was just their second win at Fenway this season and the first time they scored more than four runs.
They teed off on Nathan Eovaldi from the start. DJ LeMahieu and Anthony Rizzo led off with singles and scored on Aaron Judge’s double and Stanton’s groundout, respectively, before the Red Sox recorded an out. Torres’ single scored Judge to give Cole a 3-0 lead to work with.
In the third, the Yankees bats did what they rarely have done this season: they added on. Rizzo led off with a double and the home team walked Judge only to have Stanton crush a dinger into right-center field.
Cole held onto that lead for five innings. He allowed three runs on five hits over six innings pitched. He walked three and struck out six. He gave up a three-run homer to Rafael Devers, his third off Cole this season.
It was his first career win at Fenway, and it was a huge one.
“I think we just have to make sure that we just build our confidence from the inside out. This is a great game, and we should sleep well tonight. We played tremendous on both sides of the baseball. But when the alarm clock goes off tomorrow morning, we better prepare the same way, and not take any pitch for granted,” Cole said. “Because tomorrow is going to be a tough one too.”
