{"id":181823,"date":"2025-10-01T05:40:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T05:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/181823\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T05:40:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T05:40:09","slug":"garrett-crochets-sparkling-outing-masataka-yoshidas-pinch-two-run-single-lift-boston-red-sox-over-new-york-yankees-in-wild-card-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/181823\/","title":{"rendered":"Garrett Crochet\u2019s sparkling outing, Masataka Yoshida\u2019s pinch two-run single lift Boston Red Sox over New York Yankees in Wild Card opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Garrett Crochet<\/a> retired 17 consecutive batters in a sparkling pitching performance, and pinch-hitter Masataka Yoshida<\/a> lined a two-run single off reliever Luke Weaver<\/a> that sent the Boston Red Sox<\/a> past the New York Yankees<\/a> 3-1 on Tuesday night in their AL Wild Card Series opener.<\/p>\n

New York loaded the bases with nobody out in the ninth inning, but All-Star closer Aroldis Chapman<\/a> worked out of the jam against his former team. Boston is 10-4 versus its longtime rival this year and halfway to winning the best-of-three playoff.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could see it in his eyes before the game that he wanted it bad,\u201d Boston\u2019s Alex Bregman<\/a> said of Crochet. \u201cJust a performance that big-time pitchers make.\u201d<\/p>\n

Game 2 is Wednesday night in the Bronx again, with Aaron Judge<\/a> and the Yankees needing a victory to extend their season and two in a row to advance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been doing it all year,\u201d Judge said.<\/p>\n

The Game 1 winner advanced in all 12 previous Wild Card Series, 10 in sweeps.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully we can continue that,\u201d Red Sox manager Alex Cora said.<\/p>\n

Crochet gave up only Anthony Volpe<\/a>\u2018s second-inning homer and improved to 4-0 against the Yankees this year, throwing a career-high 117 pitches in a marquee duel of ace left-handers with Max Fried<\/a>. Crochet struck out 11 and walked none over 7 2\/3 innings while allowing four hits.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had some big 3-2 counts and some hitter\u2019s counts and just weren\u2019t able to come through,\u201d New York\u2019s Paul Goldschmidt<\/a> said.<\/p>\n

Pitching with a 2-1 lead after Yoshida\u2019s go-ahead hit in the seventh, Crochet extended his streak of retired batters until Volpe singled with one out in the eighth. Crochet\u2019s final pitch was his fastest at 100.2 mph, which Austin Wells<\/a> took for a called third strike.<\/p>\n

Chapman retired Jos\u00e9 Caballero on a flyout to finish the eighth before Bregman, playing his 100th postseason game, hit an RBI double in the ninth off David Bednar<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Goldschmidt, Judge and Cody Bellinger<\/a> loaded the bases with consecutive singles starting the bottom half, but Chapman recovered to get the save when he struck out Giancarlo Stanton<\/a>, retired Jazz Chisholm Jr.<\/a> on a shallow flyout and fanned Trent Grisham<\/a> with a 101 mph fastball.<\/p>\n

Boston improved to 13-12 against the Yankees in the playoffs, winning nine of the last 10 meetings.<\/p>\n

Crochet threw the most pitches in a postseason game since Washington\u2019s Stephen Strasburg<\/a> tossed 117 against St. Louis in 2019.<\/p>\n

Fried pitched shutout ball for 6 1\/3 innings but a Yankees bullpen that had a 4.37 ERA during the regular season, 23rd among the 30 teams, faltered again.<\/p>\n

Weaver relieved with no one on, got ahead of Ceddanne Rafaela<\/a> 0-2 in the count, then walked him on 11 pitches.<\/p>\n

Nick Sogard<\/a> grounded a double into right-center, hustling to second when Judge didn\u2019t sprint to pick up the ball. Yoshida lined the next pitch, a fastball at the letters, to center for a 2-1 lead.<\/p>\n

Weaver had a 1.05 ERA in his first 24 appearances, was sidelined for 2 1\/2 weeks by a strained left hamstring, then had a 5.31 ERA over his final 40 games.<\/p>\n

Fried got 19 swings and misses, striking out six and walking three while allowing four hits. He escaped a second-and-third, two-out jam in the fourth, then first-and-second, one-out trouble in the fifth.<\/p>\n

Volpe, who slumped to a .212 batting average this year, put the Yankees ahead when he drove a sinker to the opposite field, where the ball landed a half-dozen rows into the right-field seats. Volpe\u2019s drive would have been a home run in all but one big league stadium: Fenway Park.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Yankees LHP Carlos Rod\u00f3n (18-9, 3.09 ERA) and Red Sox RHP Brayan Bello<\/a> (11-9, 3.35) start Wednesday.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/p>\n

Ronald Blum, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Garrett Crochet retired 17 consecutive batters in a sparkling pitching performance, and pinch-hitter Masataka…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-181823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}