The Red Sox look at hang on to first place in the wild card race this afternoon against the Yankees behind Nick Pivetta (4:10 p.m., NESN, MLBN out-of-network).
What can you say about yesterday that wouldn’t get you bleeped off TV? Very little, it seems, so it’s best that we never speak of it again. Nearly everything went wrong, and the yellow jersey win streak was ended in dramatic fashion. The one real takeaway here is that the yellow jerseys are not magical. They still rule though. Let the Yankees fans hate all they want, if only because it’s useless to try and stop them.
More useful: trying to stop them at the plate, which is what Pivetta will do opposite Nestor Cortes, which is precisely the de facto playoff matchup we’ve been dying to see for years. ANYHOO, Hunter Renfroe is back in the 2 spot and (maybe one day late) Kevin Plawecki is back behind the plate in what is, if not a must-win game, a wow-it-would-really-help-to-win game. Alex Verdugo is not playing in said game, which you can take as a lefty matchup result or maybe something larger. Whatever you prefer.
Game 155 vs. Yankees
Lineup spot | Yankees | Red Sox |
---|---|---|
Lineup spot | Yankees | Red Sox |
1 | Brett Gardner, CF | Kiké Hernández, CF |
2 | Aaron Judge, RF | Hunter Renfroe, RF |
3 | Anthony Rizzo, 1B | Rafael Devers, 3B |
4 | Giancarlo Stanton, DH | Xander Bogaerts, SS |
5 | Joey Gallo, LF | J.D. Martinez, DH |
6 | Gleyber Torres, 2B | Kyle Schwarver, LF |
7 | Gary Sánchez, C | Bobby Dalbec, 1B |
8 | Rougned Odor, 3B | Kevin Plawecki, C |
9 | Gio Urshela, SS | José Iglesias, 2B |
SP | Nestor Cortes, LHP | Nick Pivetta, RHP |