Let’s hope this one ends in better fashion for the Olde Towne Team.
The Yankees beat the Sox in the Bronx on Wednesday, a thrilling 4-3, wild-card joust that squared this best-of-three. New York scored the winning run off Garrett Whitlock in the bottom of the eighth when Jazz Chisholm Jr. (part Mickey Rivers, part Enos Slaughter) scored from first on a two-out single to right by Austin Wells.
For Boston, this means that after 164 games, a controversial trade/salary dump of a franchise player, a visit to the Oval Office which sparked a 10-game July winning streak, a wild champagne celebration last Friday at Fenway (Apple TV, anyone?), and 18 innings of wild-card drama in the Bronx, the season has come down to one game for the right to advance in MLB’s postseason tournament.
Unlike 1978, when the starting pitchers were Mike Torrez and Ron Guidry, the starting pitchers in the Bronx on Thursday night will be baby-faced Sox lefty Connelly Early (23 years old, four big league games) and 24-year-old Yankee rookie righty Cam Schlittler (14 big league games). For the right to start a best-of-five Division Series in Toronto on Saturday.
The Sox can still win this series, of course, but Boston fans are kind of a mess at this hour. Now that the baseball calendar has turned to October, Alex Cora’s starting rotation, bullpen, and lineup are all severely compromised.
Cora, who clearly outmanaged Aaron Boone in the opener, worked with utmost urgency — dare we say, panic? — Wednesday, lifting starter Brayan Bello with one out in the third. Bello, one of only two established Sox starters for this postseason, faced only 11 batters and threw 28 pitches.
Asked about the strange, quick hook, Cora said, “It doesn’t feel good to do that. You want the kid to get deep experience in the game … I bet it frustrated him, but I told him, ‘You just got to be ready for the next one.’ ”
Of course, there won’t be a “next one” unless the Sox beat the Yankees in Game 3.
Imagine going into a playoff series with only two established starting pitchers, then lifting one of them after only 2⅓ innings. Yeesh.
Going into their most important game of the year, the Sox are giving the ball to an apple-cheeked kid who was a West Point cadet three years ago and pitched his first big league game just four weeks ago.
“It’s going to be really fun,” said an earnest Early. “I’ve got to go out there and trust myself. These have been really good games so far and every pitch really matters. I just have to go out there and do my thing.”
“He’s a young kid,” acknowledged Sox catcher Carlos Narváez. “He’s been electric. All his pitches have been good and we’re going to use them all. I get a good vibe from him.”
“He’s an awesome kid, a competitor,” said de facto Sox captain Alex Bregman. “He wants the ball and we’re looking forward to playing behind him tomorrow.”
Swell.
What about Boston’s bullpen? Justin Wilson, Justin Slaten, Steven Matz, Zack Kelly, Whitlock, and Payton Tolle followed Bello to the hill in Game 2. The indomitable Whitlock threw a whopping 47 pitches, picked up the loss, and admitted “I got a little tired at the end. I definitely lost command.”
Ouch.
Meanwhile, the lineup is slouching toward extinction. A lot of guys are turning into October pumpkins. Romy Gonzalez is hitless in two nights in the cleanup spot. Ceddanne Rafaela and Rob Refsnyder also are hitless. Trevor Story provided all three Boston runs Wednesday with a two-run single and solo homer; the Sox need the rest of the bats to wake up.
Jarren Duran, who’s been scuffling for a while, had a hit and scored a run in Game 2, but made a critical defensive mistake in the fifth when he failed to snag Aaron Judge’s shallow fly to left. Duran came a long way in to get to the ball, but it was catchable and clanged off his mitt, allowing Trent Grisham to score from second. It was ruled a hit — everything is scored a hit in 2025 — but everybody knows it was an error. Including Duran.
“It’s on me,” he said, always accountable. “This one’s going to sting a little bit. I know this game is 100 percent on me. I’m going to have to wear this one.”
Snap out of it, kid. The Yankees are hardly invincible. Their Game 3 starter will be Schlittler, a former Boston Globe All-Scholastic from Walpole High School, who went 4-3 with a 2.96 ERA in 14 games after getting called up this summer. Schlittler’s dad, John, is chief of police in Needham.
“This is awesome,” said Bregman, who is playing in October for the ninth consecutive year. “This is what baseball is all about. Two great teams competing. We have to just be aggressive and trust ourselves and go out and try to execute.”
Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at daniel.shaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him @dan_shaughnessy.
