Red Sox
“Quite frankly, the Yankees are getting schooled by the Red Sox.”
The Yankees might have anthem their lowest point of the 2025 season and in their rivalry with the Red Sox in recent years on Saturday.
New York gave up seven runs in the ninth inning in its 12-1 loss to Boston, playing comically bad baseball in the final frame to allow the Red Sox to take the first three games of a pivotal four-game set. The win also gave the Red Sox an 8-1 advantage in the season series.
After a string of hits gave the Red Sox a 9-1 lead, the Yankees began to play fundamentally bad baseball. Shortstop Anthony Vole made a diving stop on David Hamilton’s ground ball up the middle with two outs, but he airmailed the throw to first base to allow another run to score.
During the next at-bat, Yankees pitcher Paul Blackburn was called for a balk when he threw the ball to first baseman Ben Rice, who wasn’t covering the bag. That allowed the Red Sox to extend their lead to 10-1. Just a couple of pitches after the balk, Carlos Narvaez anthem a two-run home run to put an exclamation point on the Red Sox’ win.
As the Yankees committed a series of comical mishaps on Saturday, the New York media didn’t hold back in criticizing the team. In fact, the YES booth spent several minutes during the ninth inning of its broadcast on Saturday doing that.
“It can’t get much worse than this,” YES play-by-play announcer Michael Kay said after Narvaez’s homer.
“Every once in a while, you get embarrassed on the field,” YES analyst Paul O’Neil replied. “This game has just snowballed. [Garrett] Crochet was the thing you had to get through and he was just too good. But then, the Yankees have absolutely fallen apart here in the last couple of innings.”
“Quite frankly, the Yankees are getting schooled by the Red Sox on this Saturday afternoon in the Bronx,” Kay added when the best of the ninth ended.
The bashing of the Yankees continued on YES’ postgame show.
“An embarrassing afternoon for the Yankees,” YES analyst Jack Curry said. “Yes, Crochet had his way with them. He went out there for seven innings and absolutely dominated with those 11 strikeouts.
“But the Red Sox were the better team. The Red Sox were the hungrier team. The Red Sox were the team playing with more urgency. When that’s the team that you’re chasing in the standings, that’s a problem. You know what else is a problem? Going 1-8 against that team.”
“Felt like deja vu all over again for the Yankees’ lineup as Crochet had their number all game,” YES analyst Dellin Betances added. “Such an embarrassing loss for the Yankees. … If this game doesn’t wake you up, I don’t know what’s going to wake you up.”
Outside of the YES broadcast, the back cover of Sunday’s New York Post focused on the Yankees’ meltdown against the Red Sox. The headline read, “Wicked Bad,” as the subhead read, “Shameful, sloppy Yanks drop eighth straight vs. rival Sox.”
Long-time MLB writer Joel Sherman sarcastically scathed the Yankees for their mistakes in Saturday’s game in a column for the New York Post.
“So friends, New Yorkers, countrymen, I come to praise the Yankees. Not bury them,” Sherman wrote. “Thus, I want to apologize for stating over and over this year that the Yankees are good at only one thing — hitting a ball over a fence. Because they are also experts at throwing to the wrong base.”
The Athletic‘s Brendan Kuty also took a couple of comedic digs at the Yankees in his postgame column.
“New York Giants quarterbacks Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston sat in a suite but left well before the last pitch,” Kuty wrote. “Shame, considering the Yankees could have used a Hail Mary.”
Kuty’s other dig came when he mentioned that the Yankees allowed players, team employees, and their families to hang out in the outfield after the game to take advantage of the nice weather.
“The club rightfully wanted to take advantage,” Kuty wrote. “Something the Yankees haven’t been able to consistently do with another team on the field for months, even though they know they have to play better.”
NJ.com’s Bob Klapsich, meanwhile, believes that the first three games of this series are a sign of what’s to come for the Yankees in October. As of Sunday, the Red Sox would be hosting the Yankees in the first round of the playoffs.
“You’re not wrong to fear the worst,” Klapsich wrote. “It feels like a short, brutal post-season is coming. The Yankees could conceivably slip by the Mariners, who are emerging as the No. 3 wild card. But everyone else is a threat.
“[Aaron] Boone seems lost in the dugout (not to mention during his post-game press conferences),” Klapsich added. “Aaron Judge is nowhere close to returning to the outfield. Luis Gil is pitching like it’s spring training (for him, it is). The bullpen is so inconsistent Devin Williams is rising again.”
As for how the Yankees themselves felt about their performance on Saturday, they know they simply need better performances.
“We’ve got to play better,” Judge said. “That’s what it comes down to. Coaches can’t fix that, fans can’t fix that, media can’t fix that. It’s the players in this room. We’ve got to step up.”
However, going off Boone’s postgame comments, the urgency might not be there yet.
“We’re not running out of time,” Boone said, “but if we don’t do better, then it’s going to fizzle out and we’re not going to get where we want to be.”
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