A CITY THAT DOESN’T HIT
Red Sox mock Yanks as big bats come up small in ALDS clincher
Aaron Judge hoped it was deja vu all over again. The Yankee slugger was standing on first, a runner ahead of him, when Giancarlo Stanton came to the plate in the bottom of the ninth. Yankee Stadium was so loud it was shaking. Judge had seen Stanton come through in this situation before.
“Stanton is our guy. He’s been in that situation before multiple times and I have seen him come through multiple times,” Judge said. “Earlier in the year he hit a grand slam against the Red Sox. I was on second base for that one.”
Tuesday night, with the season on the line, Stanton swung and missed at a ball down and away, an at-bat that summarized his and the Yankees’ season. The ninth-inning rally came up just short as the Red Sox beat the Bombers, 4-3, at the Stadium.
They clinched the best-of-five series, 3-1, and advanced to the AL Championship Series, where they will face the Astros.
After Judge had walked past the Red Sox clubhouse blaring Frank Sinatra’s version of “New York, New York” following the Yankees’ win at Fenway Saturday night, Boston em- braced it. The Red Sox sarcastically blasted the Yankees’ signature song in the clubhouse as they celebrated clinching — the second time they have sipped champagne in the Bronx in a month.
Tuesday night’s game was a microcosm of the Yankees’ battle with the Red Sox this season. The Bombers won 100 games, but still had to watch on Sept 20 as the boys from Boston beat them out for the AL East division title and celebrated at the Stadium.
“Well we fought hard all year, worked hard all year, came up a little short,” Brett Gardner said of what is likely his last season with the Yankees. “This is the time of year when good teams get sent home and great teams move on. The Red Sox are having a great year, it’s still going.
“I felt like we had a really, really good season, we fought as hard as we could to catch them all year and weren’t able to,” Gardner said. “Got to the wildcard game and then run into them in the first round. Got beat, really, really good team. Hurts right now to come that close, mount that kind of comeback, want so bad to go back to Boston for Game 5 and then come up a little short. It just hurts.”
After Stanton struck out, Craig Kimbrel hit Neil Walker with a pitch with the bases loaded and gave up a long sacrifice fly to Gary Sanchez, letting the Yankees pull within a run.
Gleyber Torres grounded out to third base — a play that was challenged and upheld on a review — to end the game and the season.
Tuesday night they went 1-for-5 with runners in scoring position, an issue they struggled with all season. They were 4-for-26 (.153) in the series with RISP. They hit just .253 with RISP, sixth in the American League and 12th in the majors, this season.
The Red Sox, who finished with the best offense in the majors, were the best at producing with runners in scoring position — and even better in this series. In the first three games, the Red Sox hit .429 in those situations, 12of-28.
The Yankees were built to win on power, scoring over half their runs on homers. They traded for Stanton last winter in part to bulk up that power-based lineup, but he went without an extra-base hit in the four ALDS games.
“We were right there with opportunities,” Stanton said. “Either way a loss is a loss, in the same boat, but like I said we got to look at what we can build on the season.”
Stanton wasn’t the only one struggling offensively, but he is getting paid to drive in runs in big spots, like October. In the ALDS, Stanton went 4-for-18 without an extra-base hit and did not drive in a run.
“I don’t want to experience the postseason, I want to win it all,” Stanton said of his first time in the playoffs. I am just disappointed the guys went further last year and we came up short . ... We’re going to come together and use it as a tool for next year.”
While the Yankees turned their attention to building for 2019, the Red Sox turned up Sinatra in their clubhouse and celebrated their first postseason series win since 2013, when they won the World Series.