Bellinger Homers, Fried Dominates as Yankees Sweep Red Sox Out of AL Wild Card Series

Cody Bellinger drove in 4 runs, Max Fried held Boston to at least one run over six innings and the New York Yankees beat the Red Sox 9-2 on Wednesday night time at Yankee Stadium, finishing a two-game sweep of the American League Wild Card Series.

The Yankees, who received Game 1 9-0 on Tuesday, outscored Boston 18-2 within the collection and eradicated the Red Sox within the Wild Card spherical for the second straight 12 months. They advance to the AL Division Series in opposition to the Tampa Bay Rays, who received the regular-season collection 7-6. Game 1 is Saturday at 6:30 p.m. ET at Tropicana Field.

New York broke the sport open with six runs within the sixth. After Willson Contreras’ solo house run — upheld on evaluate — minimize the deficit to 2-1 within the prime half, Spencer Jones opened the underside of the inning by reaching first on a strikeout and wild pitch by Garrett Crochet after a Yankees problem overturned the decision. George Lombard Jr. singled Jones house, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Trent Grisham adopted with singles to load the bases. Austin Wells’ sacrifice fly and Ryan McMahon’s groundout made it 5-1. Reliever Garrett Whitlock deliberately walked Ben Rice, and Bellinger adopted with a three-run homer to right-center for an 8-1 lead.

“I couldn’t believe he was there,” Yankees supervisor Aaron Boone mentioned of Jones reaching base, in line with The Associated Press. “I saw the ball squirt away a little bit. I didn’t think that much of it, and looked up and I was, like, ‘Oh, he’s safe.'”

Crochet, activated from the 60-day injured listing Tuesday, was pitching for the primary time since April 25. The Red Sox had positioned him on the injured listing with left shoulder irritation. He confronted 4 batters with out recording an out and was charged with 4 runs on three hits.

Luis García Jr. opened the scoring with a solo homer to right-center off Sonny Gray within the fourth, and Bellinger’s RBI single off Erik Miller within the fifth made it 2-0. García, acquired from Washington on Aug. 3, went 3-for-5 in his first postseason begin. Bellinger went 2-for-5, and Wells added an RBI single off Whitlock within the seventh.

Fried allowed one run on three hits and a stroll with six strikeouts on 98 pitches to earn the win. Boston did not rating till Contreras’ homer, ending 14 scoreless innings to open the collection. Will Warren, Brent Headrick and David Bednar completed the ultimate three innings, with the one run in opposition to them approaching Nick Sogard’s solo homer off Warren within the seventh.

Gray took the loss, permitting two runs on six hits over 4⅔ innings with 5 strikeouts. Boston managed 4 hits and left 9 runners on base, and went 7-for-60 (.117) with 19 strikeouts over the 2 video games.

“Regardless of all the special things that happened this summer, and there was quite a few, the goal is to win the World Series and that ended for us tonight, so it’s frustrating,” Red Sox supervisor Chad Tracy mentioned, per the AP.

“Step one,” Bellinger mentioned. “Now we got to go into Tampa and play against a tough team.”

Attendance was 49,004.