Red Sox, Yankees soak in storied history of rivalry

BOSTON — Oh, it’s on.

A day before he is scheduled to face the Red Sox in the AL wild-card game, Yankees ace Gerrit Cole dropped the name that dare not be spoken within the confines of Fenway Park — at least not since the last one-game playoff between the longtime rivals was decided by a light-hitting shortstop popping the goahead homer over the Green Monster.

“Bucky Dent, right?” Cole said when asked what he knew about the history between the teams. “You’re dreaming about putting yourself in that position, and coming through for your team. And here we are.”

Forty-three years after Dent’s homer helped the Yankees beat the Red Sox to break a tie for the AL East title, the teams meet again for one game, with the winner this time advancing to face the Rays in an AL Division Series.

Cole (16-8) faces Nathan Eovaldi (11-9) in Boston, where Dent homered, where ‘Tek shoved A-Rod, where Roger returned, where Pedro pushed Zimmer and where Dave Roberts stole second to make everyone all-but forget about everything that happened up until then.

“There’s a buzz here,” said Yankees manager Aaron Boone, himself a Red Sox beater with an 11th-inning, walkoff home run in Game 7 of the 2003 AL Championship Series at Yankee Stadium.

“It matters here. It’s fun to compete in games here. It’s tough to compete in games here,” Boone said. “Yeah, I think there will be some tension, electricity. Everything you could hope for for a winner-take-all game in the playoffs and two outstanding franchises and teams.”

It will be the fifth time the teams have met in the playoffs — the 1978 tiebreaker counted as part of the regular season — with each club winning twice. In postseason games, the Yankees lead 12-11, but the Red Sox have won seven of the last eight.

Twice series have come down to a winor-go-home seventh game, in the 2003 and ’04 ALCS. Each team has won one.

Red Sox manager Alex Cora, who arrived in Boston as a player in 2005, right after the most recent heyday of the rivalry, said back then it was fueled by players such as David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada.

“It was more about the characters, the players, bigger-than-life,” he said. “It was like, ‘Wow, these guys are unbelievable.’

“They used to fight, too, back in the day, so I think that gave it a little bit more for the fan base,” Cora said. “We have great players ... two teams are playing for the same thing. Throughout the season, it’s been a roller-coaster ride.”

With baseball returning to a full, 162game schedule after the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, the Red Sox held the edge over the Yankees for most of the year but fell behind after a Yankees sweep in Boston from Sept. 24-26. The Red Sox swept the Nationals on the final weekend while the Yankees lost two of three to the East-champion Rays to finish tied at 92-70; the Red Sox earned home-field advantage by virtue of their 10-9 head-tohead record against the Yankees.

That helped avoid tiebreakers that would have necessitated a Game 163 on Monday in Boston.