No matter how good Yankees relievers looked down the stretch, they had inflicted enough pain during the course of the regular season to induce nightmares about what might happen in the playoffs.
The Yankees could not wake up from such a night terror on Tuesday, though their bullpen was not the only unit responsible for that.
After Max Fried carried a shutout into the seventh inning, hanging on to a one-run lead, Aaron Boone called on Luke Weaver and he quickly flushed it away, resulting in a tense 3-1 loss to the Red Sox in Game 1 of their AL wild-card series in The Bronx.
Weaver had no room for error because Red Sox ace Garrett Crochet was in the midst of a dominant night, throwing 7 ²/₃ innings of one-run ball while striking out 11.
Crochet passed the baton to former Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman, who finished off the eighth before allowing singles on three straight pitches to Paul Goldschmidt, Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger to lead off the ninth.
Giancarlo Stanton, the author of so many epic postseason at-bats, could not deliver another as he struck out on four pitches. Jazz Chisholm Jr., who was not thrilled to start the game on the bench before entering in the top of the eighth, flied out to right field, not deep enough to score Goldschmidt from third.
Chapman then struck out Trent Grisham on a 101.2 mph heater to end it in dramatic fashion, putting Yankees season on life support entering Wednesday’s Game 2.
“We are going to show up [Wednesday], and I expect us to do pretty well,” manager Aaron Boone said.
They will have to fare better against Brayan Bello, who has mostly had their number until the last time they saw him in mid-September, than they did against Crochet. After giving up a solo home run to Anthony Volpe in the second inning, the lefty retired 17 straight Yankees — who used a righty-heavy lineup that did not include Ben Rice or Chisholm — before Volpe singled with one out in the eighth inning.
Crochet came back to get Austin Wells looking at a 100.2 mph fastball on his career-high 117th, fastest and final pitch of the night.
“He’s the best pitcher in the game,” Judge said.
After Chapman entered, Volpe distracted him enough to throw over to first base three times unsuccessfully, allowing him to take second. But Chapman buckled down to get José Caballero to fly out to end the threat.
The Red Sox added an insurance run in the top of the ninth off David Bednar, as longtime nemesis Alex Bregman roped an RBI double to make it 3-1.
Fried, who had escaped jams in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings, threw his 102nd and final pitch to record the first out of the seventh inning, then walked off the mound to a standing ovation.
“I definitely exerted a lot of energy trying to get out of that, but I definitely had enough in the tank for whatever the team needed,” Fried said.
Weaver entered and quickly got ahead of Ceddanne Rafaela 0-2 before the Red Sox center fielder — who had the lowest walk rate on his team during the regular season — fought back for an 11-pitch walk.
“That’s a real tough one to swallow when you know you had him in an advantage count,” Weaver said.
No. 9 hitter Nick Sogard followed with a hustle double to right-center field — seemingly testing and taking advantage of Judge’s injured arm — to put two runners in scoring position. The Red Sox then sent up pinch-hitter Masataka Yoshida, who pounced on the first pitch he saw and drilled it to center field to score both runs for the 2-1 lead.
Besides the ninth inning, the best chance for the Yankees to score came in the first, when Goldschmidt and Judge led off with back-to-back singles. But Crochet fanned Bellinger on a 99 mph fastball above the zone and then got Stanton to ground into an inning-ending double play.
By the end of the night, the Yankees had their backs against the wall, just one game into the postseason.
“We’ve been doing it all year,” Judge said. “Lot of veterans in this clubhouse that have been through some stuff. Lot of this team going to the postseason last year, been to the World Series, been in some tough moments. Go out there and play our game and we’ll be good.”
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