Boston Woke Up the Yankees — Then Got Absolutely Buried in the Bronx

If there was any question whether Tuesday night's 9-0 beatdown was just one of those nights, the Yankees answered it pretty quickly. For the second night in a row, they absolutely hammered the Boston Red Sox, this time 9-2, to complete the Wild Card sweep and send their biggest rival home for the winter. Two games. Eighteen Yankees runs. Two Boston runs. Now the Yankees are headed to Tampa this weekend to take on the Rays in the ALDS, and after what we just watched for two nights in the Bronx, I don't know how you could ask for a better way to start October.

Tuesday night was the Cam Schlittler and Ben Rice show. Wednesday night belonged to Max Fried and an offense that once again just kept coming. Fried was exactly what you wanted in an elimination game. He attacked hitters, worked quickly and gave Boston almost nothing to work with. The Red Sox didn't score through the first five innings, and with the Yankees slowly building a 2-0 lead, it felt like we were heading toward another night where Boston might never get anything going offensively.

Then Willson Contreras finally got them on the board.

Contreras took Fried deep for a solo home run in the sixth to make it 2-1, and you would've thought he just hit a walk-off in Game 7 with the amount of time it took him to get around the bases. I don't know if the trot actually took five minutes, but it certainly felt like it. After getting embarrassed 9-0 the night before and doing basically nothing against Fried all night, Boston finally had a little life. Contreras enjoyed every second of that home run.

Apparently the Yankees noticed.

Because the bottom of the sixth was basically New York saying, "Okay, that's enough of that."

George Lombard Jr. got the scoring started in the inning with an RBI single, and then it just became hit after hit, baserunner after baserunner and run after run. This wasn't even the classic Yankees offense where everybody is trying to hit the ball 450 feet. They were putting the ball in play, extending innings and making Boston's pitching staff work for every single out. It was exactly the kind of offense you want to see in October. Then Boston decided to intentionally walk Ben Rice and bring Cody Bellinger to the plate with the bases loaded.

Interesting strategy.

Bellinger made them pay for it immediately, launching a three-run homer that completely blew the game open and sent Yankee Stadium into absolute chaos. That was the moment the series was over. Boston had just spent five innings getting suffocated by Fried, finally scratched across one run, and within minutes the Yankees had turned a 2-1 baseball game into a blowout. That's October baseball. You give a good team an opening and sometimes the entire game is gone before you even realize what happened.

And I think that's what I like most about these first two games. The Yankees aren't winning one specific way. Tuesday night, Rice hit two home runs and drove in six while Schlittler completely dominated Boston. Tonight, they finished with 14 hits and just kept applying pressure until the Red Sox pitching staff finally broke. Luis García Jr. got the Yankees started with a solo homer in the fourth. Bellinger drove in another run in the fifth. Lombard delivered. The lineup kept turning over. Then Bellinger supplied the knockout punch when Boston tried to work around Rice.

This lineup suddenly feels deep.

And don't overlook what the Yankees just got from their starting pitching. Schlittler gave them 6 1/3 scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts in Game 1, and Fried followed it up by completely controlling Boston in Game 2 outside of the Contreras homer. That's the formula in October. You don't need every hitter to be Aaron Judge if your starters are giving you that kind of baseball and your lineup is capable of exploding at any moment. Get six or seven strong innings, make the other team grind for everything and then let this lineup eventually find the big inning.

Boston found that out the hard way.

The Red Sox came into Yankee Stadium needing to win two out of three games. Instead, they got outscored 18-2 and never made it to Thursday. There was no stressful winner-take-all Game 3. No Gerrit Cole start with the entire season hanging in the balance. No extra wear on the bullpen. The Yankees handled their business, swept their biggest rival and now get to turn the page.

And that's where this gets really interesting.

Tampa Bay is waiting in the ALDS, with Game 1 coming this weekend. The Rays won the AL East for a reason, and this is obviously going to be a completely different challenge than what Boston presented. But if you're the Yankees, you have to love the way you're entering this series. The bats are hot, the starting pitching has been dominant, the bullpen hasn't been completely taxed and there is legitimate confidence running through this team right now.

I've watched enough Yankees postseason baseball to know not to start planning a parade after the Wild Card round. There are going to be stressful games. There are going to be nights where the bats disappear and every pitch feels like life or death. That's October.

But this was exactly how you wanted it to start.

Beat Boston.

Sweep Boston.

Embarrass Boston.

And then send them home while you head to Tampa.

The Yankees are moving on, and after scoring 18 runs in two nights while getting dominant starting pitching from Schlittler and Fried, the rest of the American League officially has something to think about.

See you Saturday, Tampa.