Another new Red Sox is providing bulletin-board material for the Yankees.
Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who spent last season with Toronto, said the Blue Jays were happy the Yankees defeated Boston in the playoffs because they preferred not to face the Red Sox in the ALDS.
“We definitely felt like (Boston) was a tougher matchup for us,” Kiner-Falefa said Tuesday, according to MassLive. “So, once we saw the other team (win), we were a lot happier. It was definitely a topic.”
Kiner-Falefa, who reached a one-year contract with the Red Sox last week, specifically named Boston ace Garrett Crochet as a player the Blue Jays wanted to avoid.
Toronto defeated the Yankees in the ALDS in four games en route to the American League pennant.
Kiner-Falefa batted .162 in the postseason but was inches away from scoring the winning run in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the World Series.
However, Los Angeles Dodgers second baseman Miguel Rojas’ throw home beat the sliding Kiner-Falefa by a split second. The Dodgers went on to win in 11 innings to clinch the championship.
“Being here I think is the best opportunity for me to get back there,” Kiner-Falefa said of the Red Sox. “I won’t ever get over that (play), it’s more how I can (get) back. I see this as a great opportunity to do that.”
A childhood Yankees fan, Kiner-Falefa spent two seasons in pinstripes from 2022-23. He was their primary shortstop in 2022 and batted .253 with 10 home runs and a .643 OPS during his tenure with the team.
His comments Tuesday came about two months after right-hander Sonny Gray joined the Red Sox with fighting words about the Yankees.
“What did factor into my decision to come to Boston [is that] it feels good to me to go to a place now where, you know what, it’s easy to hate the Yankees, right?” said Gray, whom Boston acquired in a trade with the St. Louis Cardinals.
“It’s easy to go out and have that rivalry and go into it with full force, full steam ahead. I like the challenge.”
Gray spent parts of two seasons with the Yankees from 2017-18, struggling to a 15-16 record with 4.51 ERA.
“I never wanted to go there in the first place,” Gray said during that same introductory video call — a claim Yankees general manager Brian Cashman would later refute.
The offseason chatter follows last year’s trash talk by rookie right-hander Hunter Dobbins, whom the Red Sox have since traded to St. Louis, and by Yankees righty Cam Schlittler, who took issue with Boston fans who targeted his mother on social media before his gem in Wild Card Game 3.
All of that figures to add a little fuel to the loaded American League East, where the Yankees, Red Sox and Blue Jays are squarely in the mix.
