Red Sox vs. Yankees: Devers-less in Boston

The first two games of the Red Sox’s crucial series vs. the Yankees have felt like a real gut punch. A Rafael Devers masterclass in which he homered twice off of his favorite pitcher, Gerrit Cole, wasn’t enough to overcome a 5-0 third-inning deficit. At least game two was out of reach early enough that I wasn’t tortured by hope. Plus I got to watch JBJ strike out DJ LeMahieu, so it was not a complete waste of an evening.

I’ve had to remind myself that, even though this has not been very much fun to watch so far, the Red Sox are down a spectacular amount of major league pitching. This is not a full-strength Red Sox theam. The injury bug has bitten while the Red Sox are mired in perhaps their most difficult stretch of the season and to make matters worse, the latest casualty is Devers himself, who was wincing and holding his back constantly last night and left in the sixth inning. He’s going to rest tonight, as Alex Cora indicated following last night’s game.

But that doesn’t matter to the standings or the Yankees as they’ve continued to roll through the first half of this four-game set mercilessly. The Devers-less Red Sox will have to rely on offense from elsewhere as they send another rookie — Kutter Crawford — to the mound against Jordan Montgomery for a 7:15 p.m. first pitch on FOX. Here’s how the two rivals will line up.