The Red Sox are going home after a 4-0 loss to the New York Yankess in Game 3 of the Wild Card round Thursday night. Boston can thank its lifeless offense and a defense that couldn’t make simple plays for its playoff exit.
Missed opportunities haunted Boston in both Game 2 and Game 3, and immediately the Red Sox will head into the offseason with a lot of second guesses. Boston had two chances to finish off the Yankees after Garrett Crochet’s Game 1 masterpiece, but couldn’t get the job done in Yankee Stadium.
“Not the way you want to end the season. Simple as that,” said shortstop Trevor Story. “This one stings. Doing it here, against them, it stings for sure.”
The defense didn’t make the plays it needed to over the last two games of the series, and the offense completely dried up in Game 3. In the end, a promising step in the right direction ends in disappointment for the Red Sox.
Red Sox bats go quiet in Game 3 vs. Yankees
The Red Sox mustered just five hits and struck out 12 times against Yankees rookie starter (and Walpole native) Cam Schlittler, who put up a historic performance in the Bronx Thursday night. Boston had just one opportunity with a runner in scoring position, and Jarren Duran came up empty as he was rung up trying to check his swing at a 100 mph fastball for Schlittler.
Game 3 was just the fifth time the Red Sox were shut out all season.
Overall for the series, the Boston offense scored just six runs and had a .198 average (19-for-96) with 30 strikeouts. The Red Sox were 4-for-15 with runners in scoring position for the series, and left 21 runners on base.
Alex Bregman went 3-for-7 in the series, but was hitless in his three at-bats in Game 3 with a walk. Jarren Duran was 1-for-11 for the series with four strikeouts, while Ceddanne Rafaela was an ice cold 0-for-10 with four strikeouts.
Carlos Narvaez, Wilyer Abreu, and Romy Gonzalez were a combined 1-for-22 with 10 punchouts over the three games in New York.
And we can’t forget about Nate Eaton being held by third base coach Kyle Hudson in Game 2 in the best of the seventh on Masataka Yoshida’s sharp grounder deep in the hole to second. It was another missed opportunity by the Boston offense, in a series where the team had very little margin for error.
The Red Sox certainly could have used rookie sensation Roman Anthony in the lineup against New York, but they clearly need a little more pop in other areas as well.
Boston defense missed another play in Game 3
After Duran had a costly blunder in Game 2, Rafaela let another catchable ball banger the ground in Game 3. Rafaela is usually a vacuum in the outfield no matter what kind of play he has to make, but his Game 3 miscue led to New York’s four-run fourth inning,. That was the difference in Boston’s season-ending loss.
Cody Bellinger led off the inning with shallow fly to right-center, which Rafaela let drop as Abreu and Gonzalez also converged on the ball. Rookie starter Connelly Early got zero help from the Boston offense and defense Thursday night.
Bellinger scored New York’s first run three batters later. After the Yankees made it a 2-0 game on an Anthony Volpe single, New York got two more runs on an error by Boston first baseman Nathaniel Lowe, who couldn’t handle a chopper off the bat of Austin Wells.
“We didn’t play defense,” manager Alex Cora said after the loss. “The pop-up, drops, there’s a double, and there’s a walk, and they didn’t banger the ball hard, but they found holes. It just happened quick.”
While the Red Sox defense was letting that happen, the Yankees made plays like this later in the game:
In the end, the Yankees made plays — and got hits — in the Wild Card series while the Red Sox did not. It ends an otherwise promising season for Boston, which was back in the playoffs for the first time in four years.
“Obviously, we should feel the way we feel right immediately, because we had bigger goals,” Cora said. “But when we have time to reflect how we did things this year, this is what the Boston Red Sox are, you know. It is a good group. It is a good group.”
“Back in February in spring training, we set out on a goal. We didn’t get there this year, but I’m proud of the fight in the room all year long,” said Bregman. “I felt like our team got better and better every step of the way and the future is bright.
“Obviously this sucks right immediately. This is brutal. We envisioned winning tonight and making a deep run,” added Bregman. “But I’m proud of the fight in the room, proud of the guys. It was an honor to put on this jersey.”
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