Nobody’s underdogs
100-win Yankees not downplaying their title chances
BOSTON — The Yankees may not be the same old Evil Empire of the dynasty days.
They certainly seemed to have captured a little more of the nation’s affections with Aaron Judge, the face of these new Bronx Bombers, and Luke Voit’s “everyman, blue- collar” persona has many rooting for the pinstripes at least in his corner of the Midwest.
But while the Yankees come into this American League Division Series against the Red Sox as the wild-card winner and with fewer wins, don’t call them the underdogs.
“We don’t see ourselves as an underdog. Obviously, Boston had a tremendous season. They have a tremendous team. We respect them and they respect us as well,” Yankees reliever Dellin Betances said at Thursday’s workout day before the best-of-five series began on Friday.
“Obviously, for the past two weeks it’s probably the first time we’ve had our team healthy, fully healthy. So it’s fun. We’ve been playing good baseball, and we will try to continue to do so this series.”
So what if the Red Sox won a franchise-record 108 games?
The Yankees won 100 — and they came into Fenway Friday night with as complete a team as they could have hoped for. Their rotation is lined up exactly as they had hoped. They have Judge, Gary Sanchez, Didi Gregorius and Aroldis Chapman finally back healthy.
“We feel really good about where we are, and especially for much of the Yankees manager Aaron Boone shakes hands with Red Sox counterpart Alex Cora before Friday night’s Game 1. G1: Yankees at Red Sox, late G2: Yankees (Tanaka) at Red Sox (Price) 8:15 p.m. Saturday, TBS G3: Red Sox (Porcello) at Yankees (Severino) 7:40 p.m. Monday, TBS G4: Red Sox (Eovaldi) at Yankees (Sabathia) 8:07 p.m. Tuesday, TBS G5: Yankees at Red Sox 7:40 p.m. Thursday, TBS Games 4-5 if necessary second half obviously dealing with different injuries and guys being down. You know, it’s arguably as whole as we’ve been all season long,” first-year Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “And with the additions that we’re able to make, we feel like we’re a really good club right now.
“You know, we played pretty well down the stretch the last week or 10 days or so when we needed to play well,” Boone added. “But I think the guys are in a good place or in a good frame of mind, and are playing with some confidence.”
And there may be a little bit of an advantage to having played the wildcard game Wednesday night, giving the Yankees some momentum.
“Hopefully that’s something that serves us well,” Boone said. Luis Severino will start Game 3 for the Yankees, and CC Sabathia will start Game 4 if necessary, Boone announced.
Masahiro Tanaka previously was set for Game 2 against Red Sox left-hander David Price.
Severino started the AL wild-card game against the Athletics on Wednesday night, pitching four shutout innings. He would be on his usual four days’ rest.
The Red Sox have said Price will be followed by Rick Porcello in Game 3 and Nathan Eovaldi in Game 4, if necessary.