BOSTON – Less than 24 hours after Jazz Chisholm Jr. called the Yankees the “best team in the league” and threatened to “step on necks,” the Red Sox clapped back with a six-run opening inning against Will Warren on Sunday.
The outburst helped Boston win a 6-4 ballgame, the rivals’ last of the regular season. The Yankees, meanwhile, missed a chance to sweep at Fenway Park as they fell to 4-9 against the Sox this season.
With the first-place Blue Jays winning on Sunday and 13 games to go before the playoffs, the Yankees are now four games behind Toronto, which holds the head-to-head tiebreaker, in the American League East. As for the top Wild Card spot, the Yankees have a 1.5-game lead over the Red Sox with the two eyeing home-field advantage for a potential Wild Card rematch.
Sunday’s series finale saw Jarren Duran jumpstart Boston’s offense, as he led off with a triple after Giancarlo Stanton, limited in his mobility, awkwardly leapt for the ball near the left field corner of The Green Monster. Warren went on to allow four more consecutive hits, including RBI singles from Alex Bregman and Nathaniel Lowe, as well as a run-scoring double from Romy Gonzalez.
Austin Slater and Chisholm Jr. then let a foul ball drop down the right field line before Masataka Yoshida lined a sac fly to center. Rob Refsnyder added another run with a groundout before another former Yankees prospect, Carlos Narváez, capped Warren’s ugly first-inning with a solo homer to dead center.
Warren did settle in after his disastrous start, as he didn’t permit another run while totaling 10 hits, one walk, two strikeouts and 89 pitches over five innings. However, his outing surely didn’t help his case for a spot in the Yankees’ playoff rotation, a competition that also includes Cam Schlitter and Luis Gil.
Warren, 31 starts into his rookie season, now has a 4.44 ERA. A few clunkers have inflated that number, but he has a 6.39 ERA in the first inning.
Warren also has a 9.42 ERA against the Red Sox this season; the Yankees may want to avoid him if they have to play Boston in the Wild Card round.
While Warren rebounded, Red Sox ace Garrett Crochet had a generous lead to work with.
The southpaw wasn’t his absolute best, as he surrendered a two-run homer to lefty killer Amed Rosario, who is now 6-for-8 lifetime against Crochet, in the fourth frame. Aaron Judge went on to club his 48th homer of the season, a solo shot, off Crochet in the fifth.
Hurt by the longball, Crochet still struck out 12 while giving up five hits and one walk over six innings.
José Caballero cut Boston’s lead to two in the seventh when he smoked a bases-empty blast over the National Car Rental sign that stands tall above The Monster, but that was all for the Yankees’ offense on Sunday.
Unable to complete their comeback attempt, the Yankees ended a grueling stretch of schedule against fellow contenders on a sour note. However, they finished the slate with a winning 7-5 record vs. Houston, Toronto, Detroit and Boston, though they lost some laughers to the Tigers along the way.
Now the Yankees will finish the season with some more favorable matchups, as all of their remaining games are against the fourth-place Twins and last-place Orioles and White Sox.
Minnesota is up first, as the Yankees begin a three-game series there on Monday.
Carlos Rodón is scheduled to start the opener, while Schlittler and Gil will follow as they try to make a stronger case for the Yankees’ playoff rotation than Warren did on Sunday.
Simeon Woods Richardson, Zebby Matthews and Taj Bradley are lined up for the Twins.
