YANKEES:New York Yankees are done

Yankees Are Done. A Frustrating Season Ends in a Wild-Card Loss.

Yankees starter Gerrit Cole surrendered three runs and exited with no outs in the third inning as the Boston Red Sox advanced to a division series against Tampa Bay.

Gerrit Cole failed to deliver on Tuesday. The Yankees’ ace was removed with no outs in the third inning.

In a meeting of imperfect and streaky 92-win teams, the Red Sox and Eovaldi thumped the Yankees and Cole, 6-2. Tuesday was the fifth time these storied rivals had played in an elimination game in the playoffs and the Red Sox have now won the past three.

“I know a lot of people doubted us and they doubted him and all that,” Red Sox Manager Alex Cora said of Eovaldi. He added: “He was amazing.”

The Red Sox now advance to face the Tampa Bay Rays in an A.L. division series that begins on Thursday. It will be a difficult task: The Rays, the defending A.L. champions, won 100 games this season, finishing eight games ahead of both the Red Sox and the Yankees in the A.L. East.

Despite equal regular-season records, the Red Sox earned the right to host wild-card game because they won the season series with the Yankees, 10-9. And on Tuesday night, the Red Sox, who had been the best hitting team at home in baseball this season, showed how much it helped to be at in Boston in front of a sold-out crowd of 38,324.

“It was really loud, especially the early innings,” Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts said. “Especially when the Yankees were hitting in that first inning, it got really loud. It was a huge advantage for us.”

Two innings later, the Red Sox again took advantage of Cole’s continued wayward command. He turned to his bread and butter pitch, a high fastball, in an attempt to strike out Kyle Schwarber but it didn’t work. Schwarber clobbered it over the right field fence for a solo blast.

“The crowd was electric there, and it definitely made me get to a point where I didn’t really know what I was doing running the bases,” Schwarber said.

A single and walk later, Yankees Manager Aaron Boone emerged from the dugout to remove Cole from the game. It was a stunning exit for Cole, normally a stout postseason pitcher whom the Yankees signed to a $324 million contract before the 2020 season for moments like these. Cole trudged toward the Yankees dugout with no outs in the third inning with his head down as Red Sox fans cheerfully waved goodbye. It was, by far, the shortest postseason start of Cole’s career.

Much like the Yankees, Cole slumped to the finish line. He missed two weeks in August after contracting the coronavirus despite being vaccinated. He also suffered a hamstring injury in early September, returning after just a week, but insisted heading into the wild-card game that his leg was fine. In September, he had an unsightly 5.13 earned run average.

Cole refused to point to any of those factors — or any, really — for his subpar performance down the stretch or on Tuesday. Eovaldi, on the other hand, struggled against the Yankees in the final week of the season, coughing up seven runs on Sept. 24, but he and the Red Sox identified the problem with his pitching and corrected it..

Added Cora: “They know him and he was great. When I went to the mound, he gave me this look, like, ‘What are you doing?’”

The Red Sox then chipped away at the Yankees’ revolving door of relievers. Left fielder Alex Verdugo drove in Bogaerts with a double in the sixth inning. In the next frame, Verdugo drove in two more runs with a single to give the Red Sox a 6-1 lead, enough cushion to withstand a ninth-inning solo blast by Stanton.

Many difficult decisions await them this winter. What to do with catcher Gary Sanchez, who struggled in several ways and has one year left before free agency? What to do with Gleyber Torres, who sputtered mightily at the plate and at shortstop before being moved to second base in September?

After the final out, the Yankees walked off the field as the Red Sox jumped with glee.

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