The New York Yankees killed two birds with one stone tonight as they defeated the Boston Red Sox 4-1 to clinch a playoff berth and win their 10,000th regular season game as a franchise. New York is guaranteed one of the Wild Card spots, but they are still grinding so they can play that one game at home in Yankee Stadium.
Yankees left-hander C.C. Sabathia came up huge in the clinching game as he won only his second game since the All Star Break to improve to 6-10 on the season. Fellow left-hander Rich Hill picked up his first loss of the season with the Red Sox.
It is the Yankees first postseason berth since 2012. It is their 52nd trip to the postseason in franchise history.
The Yankees got on the board first when Carlos Beltran hit an oppo taco from the right-handed batters box that landed two or three rows over the fence to put the Yankees up 1-0 in the second inning. Four batters later, Brendan Ryan singled to left that scored John Ryan Murphy to double the Yankees lead.
Boston would get one back in the fifth when Mookie Betts singled to center, scoring Deven Marrero to make it a 2-1 game. The Yankees broke the game open in the seventh when Greg Bird slugged his 11th home run to deep right, making it a 3-1 game. The very next inning, Heath Hembree came into the game for the Red Sox and the first batter he faced Rob Refsnyder took him deep to make it a 4-1 game.
Sabathia last five innings where he allowed one run on six hits while striking out three. Girardi went to his bullpen and got three shutout innings from right-hander Adam Warren. That left three outs to get and it was Dellin Betances who came on and recorded his ninth save of the season.
After the game, Greg Bird talked about getting called up midseason and being a part of the now postseason bound Yankees, “It’s a special feeling, just to be able to come up and help these guys out. I followed them all year, so the work they put in, just being able to come up and help I don’t know what else to say it’s just a special feeling.”
The starter tonight C.C. Sabathia also talked after the game about why he believes in this team, “Cause I mean, nobody believed in us. We are standing here popping champagne and you know, they picked us last in the division and to not even get in the playoffs. It feels good.”
Alex Rodriguez talked about if he expected to be popping champagne at this point, when he was at the beginning of the season, he said, “I always believed there something about wearing this uniform that gives you a tremendous amount of confidence. I know this year was different. This is probably the first year since I’ve been here in ’04 that we were underdogs. Years when we win 100 games we were just playing to our expectations, but this year, the last eight months this team has come together and we play for each other. Not for personal statistics, and that’s what I referred to about our DNA all year.”
In Joe Girardi’s postgame press conference he talked about the two-year playoff drought that the Yankees have experienced, “You know I think it’s extremely gratifying with what we went through this year and where people figured that we would be at the end of the year. What these guys did, these guys, to me, did it a lot on just heart and hard work. We had a lot of injuries, we have age on this team, we dealt with a lot of stuff, but they always kept fighting and they always seemed to bounce back. When things started to look bad, they would bounce back and they did it again tonight.”
After the game the Yankees were all very excited and partying with champagne like they just won the World Series, it seems like they all get along very well. The veterans all gave tons of credit to the youngsters that have made an impact this year in Greg Bird, Rob Refsnyder and Luis Severino among many others. Even in their postgame interviews the guys were getting champagne or beer poured over their heads. The Yankees also have a very good music playlist in the clubhouse, including "Fight For Your Right to Party" by the Beastie Boys.
The Red Sox head on the road to face the Cleveland Indians tomorrow with Henry Owens on the mound going up against Josh Tomlin. The Yankees go to Baltimore tomorrow for a three-game set before the Wild Card Game on Tuesday. Joe Girardi announced in his postgame press conference that the starter for tomorrow will be Luis Severino. “Sevy” as he is known will go up against left-hander Wei-Yin Chin.