Author: MLB Baseball News, Scores, Standings, Rumors, Fantasy Games

Good morning! Clinch your series today.

Pulse Power Rankings: Multiple WNBA dramas highlight frenzied day

Copy

There are not many days in which we start this newsletter by saying, “I have to just tell you everything that happened yesterday.” Yesterday, however, was so good that we’re going to do exactly that. 

Consider this a power ranking of Monday’s incredible playoff action, starting with the WNBA stealing the spotlight: 

1. The Aces are back in the WNBA Finals, barely

For the third time in four seasons, the Las Vegas Aces will play in the finals. It’s an expected outcome after a most unexpected, bonkers game last night. 

The Aces and Fever played to overtime in a Game 5 classic, with Vegas only separating after Indiana lost Kelsey Mitchell to injury and Aliyah Boston to foul trouble. The Aces were clearly the better team, but anyone watching last night’s game came away equally impressed with a Fever team that’s been through a lot this year. To come five minutes from reaching the finals after all that is almost unbelievable. 

The W also soaked up an entire news cycle’s worth of headlines yesterday outside of the exquisite game: 

Minnesota Lynx superstar Napheesa Collier said the league has the “worst leadership in the world” in a prepared statement during a news conference. Collier was largely referencing some pain points with game officials, who became a focal point after Collier suffered an ankle injury in Game 3 of Minnesota’s semifinal loss to Phoenix. Collier and Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve were furious with the lack of a foul call. Read Collier’s full statement here.

Collier also referenced ongoing negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement, which seem like a mess at this point. Kelsey Plum said yesterday the league is stalling. Plum and others agreed with Collier that the league needs new leadership, too. Tough day for commissioner Cathy Engelbert.

Oh, and the finals begin Friday. I asked Ben Pickman for his early read on the matchup: 

“This series has a fascinating frontcourt matchup as the Mercury have reached the WNBA Finals in large part because of their star bigs, Alyssa Thomas and Satou Sabally, while the Aces are led by four-time WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson. How the two coaches try to defend each team’s frontcourt will go a long way in determining who takes home the title. Bonus interesting question: Can the Aces re-ignite any dynasty talk by winning a third title in four years?”

2. Shohei Ohtani went nuclear

In baseball’s nightcap, the Dodgers took a 1-0 series lead over the Reds with a 10-5 win, fueled by Shohei Ohtani’s two home runs. L.A. hit five dingers in the game, and this one felt over quickly. Look how quickly his leadoff homer got out:

Welcome to the SHO 💥

🎥 @MLB | #Postseasonpic.twitter.com/JJH4dVGwty

— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) October 1, 2025

Dude might be pretty good. Let’s take a quick news break before returning to the rankings:

News to Know

Wild sign Kaprizov after all

The Minnesota Wild agreed to a record eight-year, $136 million extension with superstar Kirill Kaprizov, the richest in NHL history by both total salary and average annual value ($17 million). It comes three weeks after the 28-year-old Kaprizov declined to sign an eight-year deal worth $128 million, which many thought could lead to Kaprizov hitting free agency next summer. Instead, Minnesota secured its future.

More news

Eagles coach Nick Sirianni insists A.J. Brown wants to be in Philadelphia despite some cryptic social posts yesterday.

In other WNBA news: The league agreed to an 11-year media rights deal to air games on USA Network. Read more here.

The Jonathan Kuminga saga is over in Golden State. The 22-year-old agreed to a two-year, $48.5 million contract yesterday. Full details here.

Golf legend Tom Watson was “ashamed” of the American Ryder Cup crowds. See his comments.

The Angels will also be searching for a new manager after announcing yesterday that Ron Washington will not return.

Chris Koras, head of baseball for the Klutch Sports agency, abruptly resigned last week.

A warning given to Daniil Medvedev at the China Open about his effort level was an error, according to the ATP. Strange story.

📫 Love The Pulse? Check out our other newsletters.

Pulse Power Rankings, Cont.: Shout-out to pitchers

Back to the power rankings: 

3. Boston’s steely swipe

The Yankees entered these playoffs as arguably the hottest team in the bracket. A loaded roster and a great September made them a trendy World Series pick. 

The division-rival Red Sox instead went to Yankee Stadium last night and exited with a thrilling 3-1 win. Garrett Crochet was spectacular over 7 2/3 innings, giving up just the one run. And Aroldis Chapman, who has reinvented himself in Boston, got out of a bases-loaded jam in the bottom of the ninth to win the game. 

Sox can clinch tonight. Wild. 

4. Tarik Skubal course-corrected

For now, the story of Detroit’s season is its historic collapse down the stretch. The thing the Tigers needed most, after letting the AL Central slip to the Guardians, was a Game 1 win, on the road in Cleveland, in the AL Wild Card Series. 

Staff ace Skubal delivered just that in 7 2/3 innings of one-run ball, as Detroit eked out a 2-1 road win. The margins are so small in this round. This was a massive, massive win. 

5. The Cubs found a buzz

Chicago finished the season 92-70, which in a normal year would’ve been plenty good to win a division title. But this is a wild-card team, and the emotions are more tenuous in this fan base. 

The Cubbies used back-to-back home runs yesterday to beat the Padres, 3-1, the franchise’s first postseason win since 2017. There was pent-up energy at Wrigley Field, as Patrick Mooney wrote, and a Game 1 win was cathartic. 

What a day all around. Let’s do it again in a few hours.

What to Watch

📺 MLB: Tigers at Guardians

1 p.m. ET on ESPN

We have the same run of schedule today as we did yesterday. The Tigers, Cubs, Red Sox and Dodgers can all advance. See all the games here. 

📺 Soccer: PSG at FC Barcelona

3 p.m. ET on Paramount+

The Champions League also continues today with a full slate. This is probably the juiciest matchup, but decide for yourself. 

Get tickets to games like these here.

Pulse Picks

The college QB class has been … surprising this year. It’s still “special,” as Bruce Feldman reports, but it’s different than we expected. Here’s what scouts have gotten right and wrong about the top signal callers. 

Want a preview of the future of college sports? Read Ralph Russo’s breakdown of the SCORE Act and the SAFE Act. 

Jurgen Klopp is one of the best managers in the modern era of European soccer. In an exclusive interview with The Athletic, he said he never wants to coach again. 

I really enjoyed Dan Woike’s story from earlier in the week on Austin Reaves, who’s at an inflection point with the ever-interesting Lakers. Reaves wants to stay in L.A. — but just made a huge bet on himself. 

Most-clicked in the newsletter yesterday: NFL Power Rankings, of course. 

Most-read on the website yesterday: ☝️

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

MLB, WNBA, The Pulse

2025 The Athletic Media Company

The Dodgers are not here for conventional wisdom. The Dodgers are here to win the World Series.

So what if an unforeseen hurdle appeared in front of their October path? The Dodgers are on the verge of turning that hurdle into an unexpected but well-planned advantage on their quest to become baseball’s first back-to-back champions in 25 years.

Conventional wisdom says the odds favor a team with a bye, because that team can set up its pitching rotation for the division series just the way it wants while its opponent burns through its best arms in the wild-card series. The Dodgers are one win away from storming through the wild-card series and setting up their pitching rotation for the division series just fine, thank you very much.

Read more:Plaschke: Dodgers flatten overmatched Reds in unwanted first round. But about that bullpen...

That, it turns out, is what you can do when your star-studded starting rotation is healthy and effective for the first time all season, at precisely the right time.

The Dodgers thoroughly outclassed the Cincinnati Reds, 10-5, in Tuesday’s opener of the best-of-three wild-card series. If the Dodgers win Wednesday, or if they win Thursday, they would advance to what would be the premier matchup in all the National League playoffs: the Dodgers vs. the Philadelphia Phillies.

“I think the biggest downside of playing in a wild-card series, obviously, if you’re able to advance, is what your pitching looks like after that,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said. “That’s the cost.

“And I think, with our depth, that’s really mitigated.”

It ain’t over ‘til it’s over. If the Angels could go 6-0 against the Dodgers this season, the Reds could win the next two games.

Read more:'It's awesome.' Blake Snell gives the Dodgers just what they paid for

However, the Reds used their best pitcher, Hunter Greene, in Game 1. The Dodgers have their best pitcher, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, ready to deploy in Game 2.

And, since the best-of-three wild card format was introduced in 2022, all 12 teams that have won Game 1 have gone on to win the series.

So let’s plan this out. If the Dodgers win Wednesday, Shohei Ohtani could start Game 1 of the division series Saturday. If the Reds force a decisive third game Thursday, Ohtani is the scheduled starter — and, if the Dodgers win, Tyler Glasnow, Emmet Sheehan and Clayton Kershaw all could be options for Game 1 of the division series.

Kershaw would be available for sure, as he is not on the wild-card roster and he would be pitching on regular rest.

“To have Clayton Kershaw standing there ready, no matter how we deploy our pitching this week, gets at the cost (of playing in the wild-card round) not being as great,” Friedman said.

And the division series includes an off day after each of the first two games, which would enable the Dodgers to use Snell on five days’ rest for Game 2 and Yamamoto on six days’ rest for Game 3.

The Dodgers have so much flexibility, in fact, that manager Dave Roberts declined to say that Ohtani would start Game 1 of the division series if the Dodgers close out the wild-card series Wednesday.

“You’re getting ahead,” Roberts said, “but one of the first two games, probably.”

It is important that Snell held the Reds to two runs in Tuesday’s victory, but it is more important that he pitched seven innings. The Dodgers asked their relievers to cover two innings with an eight-run lead, and it took four of them to do it.

The Dodgers’ road to success is clear: more of the starters, less of the erratic relievers, and less need to lean on Glasnow and Sheehan in an unfamiliar role.

Read more:Dodgers open playoffs with displays of dominance and disorder in win over Reds

“The deeper that the starters go in the game — one, it means that we’re pitching good; but, two, you’re giving the bullpen a break and a breather, and they get to be 100% every time they come out,” Snell said.

“That makes for a different game that favors us.”

The Dodgers improvised their way to a title last October, with three starting pitchers and four bullpen games. That was not conventional wisdom, either.

This time of year, however, most postseason teams have three or four reliable starters. The Dodgers have six. If they have to play in an extra round, well, what doesn’t kill them makes them stronger.

Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Imagine if the Dodgers hadn’t scored a gazillion runs.

Shudder.

Imagine how the majority of spectators would have tensed up when manager Dave Roberts trudged to the mound to remove Alex Vesia if the game was actually close.

Hoo boy.

Imagine the devastation the Dodgers would have experienced if Jack Dreyer’s bases-loaded walk legitimately endangered their chances of winning.

Read more:Plaschke: Dodgers flatten overmatched Reds in unwanted first round. But about that bullpen...

Barf.

The postseason started for the Dodgers on Tuesday night, and their pumpkin of a bullpen didn’t magically transform into an elegant carriage in a 10-5 victory over the Cincinnati Reds in Game 1 of their National League wild-card series.

On a night when the hitters crushed five home runs and starter Blake Snell completed seven innings, the relievers continued to be as terrible as they were over the last three months of the regular season.

The Dodgers technically moved a win closer to defending their World Series title, but that ultimate goal suddenly looked further out of reach because of a shocking 30-minute top of the eighth inning during which three of their arsonist relievers nearly created a save situation out of an eight-run game.

Can a team possibly win a World Series with such an unreliable bullpen?

Before the game, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said he thought so.

“It’s not a talent issue,” Friedman said, but who knows if this was an honest assessment or a disingenuous effort to convince his audience that he hadn’t wasted tens of millions of dollars on a bunch of no-chancers.

Friedman continued, “We’ve seen it time and time again with guys who have scuffled and all of a sudden found it and they roll off a heater.”

That’s not what happened in Game 1.

If anything, the troublesome eighth inning eliminated certain relievers from consideration to pitch in in the highest-leverage of situations.

Suspicions about rookie fireballer Edgardo Henriquez were confirmed, as Henriquez walked a batter to load the bases, walked in a run and gave up a run-scoring single.

The wishful thinking that Dreyer could be a late-inning option was dented, as Dreyer entered the game and walked in another run.

Most disconcerting was the performance of Vesia, the team’s most trusted reliever.

Vesia started the inning, with the Dodgers leading 10-2. The use of Vesia in such a lopsided game spoke to how little Roberts wanted to use any of his other relievers in a game of this magnitude, but the fiery left-hander looked like a rubber band that had been stretched out too many times. Vesia, who pitched a career-high 68 games in the regular season, retired only one batter. He gave up a hit and a walk.

So what now?

Roberts sounded as if the only relievers he trusted were his starters. He said Tyler Glasnow and Emmet Sheehan would be in the bullpen for Game 2.

Glasnow was last used as a reliever in 2018. He’s never pitched out of the bullpen in the postseason.

Sheehan has pitched in relief in only five of 28 career games. He has only one career save, and that was in a four-inning appearance in a blowout.

The Dodgers have contemplated deploying Shohei Ohtani out of the bullpen. They could also have other starting pitchers such as Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Snell pitch in relief instead of throwing scheduled bullpen sessions between starts.

The team’s highest-ceiling late-inning option could be Roki Sasaki, who struck out two batters in each of the two one-inning appearances he made in the final week of the regular season.

Read more:Dodgers open playoffs with displays of dominance and disorder in win over Reds

But outside of Ohtani, who closed out the championship game of the most recent World Baseball Classic, can any of these starters really be counted on to perform in unfamiliar roles?

Will Yamamoto and Snell really be unaffected in their starts if they also pitch in relief?

It’s unclear.

But what is clear is the Dodgers can’t wait around for the likes of Tanner Scott or Blake Treinen or anyone who pitched in the eighth inning on Tuesday to magically round into form as Friedman envisions. They have to try something new.

Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

One way to keep Dodger relievers from ruining the team’s postseason run is to keep the bullpen gate closed for as long as possible.

Blake Snell gave that strategy a whirl in Game 1 of the National League wild-card series Tuesday, pitching a solid — sometimes brilliant —- seven innings. But even then he and his teammates had to wait out the nightly bullpen meltdown before escaping with a 10-5 win over the Cincinnati Reds to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three series.

“Blake was fantastic tonight,” manager Dave Roberts said. “You could see he was in complete control. The fastball was great. The change-up was plus.

“Kind of mixing and matching and he really was in control the entire game.”

The bullpen? Not so much. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

Read more:Plaschke: Dodgers flatten overmatched Reds in unwanted first round. But about that bullpen...

For Snell, it was that mixing and matching that made him so tough, Cincinnati manager Terry Francona said.

“The big difference-maker was his change-up,” Francona said. “It was his ability to manipulate the change-up, even vary it. He'd throw one that was 87 [mph] and one that was 82. And he threw two, three, four in a row at times at times, all different speeds.

“You throw a 97 [mph fastball] in there, and it becomes difficult.”

Snell was efficient from the start, retiring the side in the first on seven pitches. He set down the first eight Reds in order, then after giving up a double and walk in the third, retired the next 10 in a row, allowing him to pitch deep into the game.

Given the bullpen’s continued struggles, that’s likely to be a blueprint the Dodgers will continue to follow in the playoffs.

“It felt good to go deep in the ballgame,” said Snell, whose seven innings matched a season high. “I felt really in control, I could read swings and just kind of navigate through the lineup.

“The deeper that the starters go in the game, it means we're pitching good. But it means you're giving the bullpen a break. So it just makes for a different game that favors us.”

Tuesday’s start was Snell’s 11th, for three teams, in the postseason. But it was his first since 2022. Getting back to October was one reason why the left-hander signed with the Dodgers 10 months ago (the five-year $182-million contract the team was offered was another reason).

 “It's awesome,” said Snell, who was wearing a blue hoodie emblazoned with the Dodgers playoff slogan “Built For Fall” across the front. “There's nothing better than pitching a postseason game in front of your home crowd. To be able to enjoy that, it meant a lot.”

And Snell took advantage, breezing into the seventh having given up just a hit. He didn’t give up a run until Elly De La Cruz’s fielder’s choice grounder with two out in the inning.

De La Cruz would score the Reds’ second run on Tyler Stephenson’s double three pitches later.

Snell got the next hitter to end the threat, with the seven innings pitched marking a career playoff best. He had matched his playoff high with nine strikeouts by the sixth inning, which he needed just 70 pitches to complete. He wound up throwing 91 pitches, giving up four hits and a walk, before Roberts went to the bullpen to start the eighth, with predictable results.

Alex Vesia was the first man through the gate and he retired just one of the three batters he faced. He was followed by flamethrower Edgardo Henriquez, who walked the first two hitters and gave up a hit to the third, forcing in two runs.

Jack Dreyer was next and he walked in another run. After entering the inning down by eight runs, Cincinnati brought the tying run to the on-deck circle with one out.

Dreyer eventually settled down, retiring the side, but the three pitchers needed 59 pitches — and 30 minutes — to get through the inning. By the time Blake Treinen came on to finish things off, starter Emmet Sheehan had started warming up.

Read more:Dodgers open playoffs with displays of dominance and disorder in win over Reds

All told, Roberts needed four relievers to get the final six outs, leaving the Dodgers hoping for a Snell-like performance from Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 2 on Wednesday to avoid straining the bullpen further.

“Those guys are on their heels with the lead we have,” Roberts said of the Reds entering the eighth inning. “When you start being too fine and getting behind, you start giving them free bases, that's how you can build innings and get momentum. So that's what I saw in that inning there for sure.

“If we don't feel comfortable using certain guys with an eight-run lead, then we've got to think through some things.” 

Maybe Snell will get a chance to finish what he starts next time out. It’s certainly no worse than the alternative.

Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

This isn’t a series, it’s calisthenics.

The Dodgers shouldn’t be here battling baseball’s junior varsity, and they know it, and they’re intent on pounding and pitching their way out of this embarrassing situation as quickly as possible.

Wild card round? The defending champions are nobody’s wild card.

The Cincinnati Reds? Human byes.

October came a day early to Chavez Ravine Tuesday and the shouldn’t-be-here Dodgers welcomed it with their annoyance, tying a club postseason record with five homers and dismantling the Reds 10-5 in the opener of a three-game wild-card series that should be mercifully completed by midweek.

Read more:Dodgers waste no time finding their October groove in Game 1 win over Reds

The Dodgers finished 10 games ahead of the Reds in the standings, and won five out of six during the regular season, and only got lumped with the pretenders when their bullpen fell apart and they blew a chance at having the week off.

If the Dodgers had taken care of business they would have finished with one of the two best records in the National League and would have drawn a first-round bye as they did the previous three seasons. But, no, they finished behind Milwaukee and Philadelphia and so, even though they claimed the National League West title for the 12th time in 13 years, they were forced into a three-games-at-home wild card round.

Hello, Reds.

Good-bye, Reds.

The Dodgers will sweep this series with a win in Game 2 Wednesday, and considering they’re sending ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto to the mound, a victory seems likely. In any event, there’s no way the Reds are winning two straight at rollicking Dodger Stadium, so book your attention to Philadelphia this weekend for the beginning of the five-game division series against the Phillies.

The only way the Reds made it this far was because the New York Mets stumbled down the stretch and lost in Miami on the final day of the season. And if Tuesday was any indication, there’s no way the Reds are getting out of here alive.

The Dodgers knocked them backward on the game’s fifth pitch with a scorching home run by Shohei Ohtani against Reds ace Hunter Greene, the second consecutive year Ohtani has started the Dodgers postseason with a longball.

The Dodgers knocked them flat two innings later with four runs on homers by last season’s playoff heroes Teoscar Hernández and Tommy Edman.

The game was over within its first hour, and the Dodgers were just getting started.

Hernández later added a second home run and, oh yeah, so did Ohtani, two of last season’s postseason stars who love the moment.

“I think it's the clutch gene,” said Dodger Manager Dave Roberts. “I think they're not afraid to fail. They like the spotlight. And it's just a really good heartbeat for those guys in those big moments.”

And to think, neither qualified as the game’s hero.

That title belonged to starter Blake Snell, who fooled the Reds into quick swings, wild swings, silly swings, and just four hits with nine strikeouts in seven innings. Perhaps just as important, he lasted 91 pitches, allowing Dodger Manager Dave Roberts to stay out the dreaded bullpen as long as humanely possible.

“The deeper that the starters go in the game, one, it means we're pitching good; but, two, it means you're giving the bullpen a break and breather,” said Snell. “And they get to be 100 percent every time they come out. So it just makes for a different game that favors us.” 

Of course, Roberts had to eventually crack that left-field door, and disaster very nearly occurred when three Dodger relievers accounted for four walks that led to three eighth-inning runs. But Jack Dreyer managed to get two outs with the bases loaded and Blake Treinen finished the game by allowing just a bloop single in the ninth.

“If we don't feel comfortable using certain guys with an eight-run lead, then we've got to think through some things,” said a dismayed Roberts.

It turns out, even the weakest part of this Dodger team was enough to eventually quiet the visitors, who shouldn’t be here too much longer.

It’s almost as if the Reds were intimidated even before the game began, as the Dodgers buried them in their thickest pregame brine.

Ice Cube was on the video board screaming that it’s time for Dodger baseball. Mariachi Joe Kelly was on the mound delighting the roaring crowd with a ceremonial first pitch that appropriately bounced. Keith Williams Jr. was bringing the chills with his usual falsetto-laden national anthem.

Jason Alexander was on the video board begging the fans to cheer louder… wait a minute. Jason Alexander? Didn’t his Seinfeld character work for the New York Yankees? What was he doing in the heart of Dodgerland? No wonder the fans were ignoring him.

Alexander’s appearance was one of the only mistakes on a night that gave hope that the Dodgers’ late-season steam — they finished 9-2 and led the league in scoring in the final weeks — could carry them far past this miserable little first-round dalliance.

“Momentum is real,” Roberts said, later adding, “I think that whether it's the Rangers find their way into the postseason to then win the World Series or some team finishing hot and remaining hot or in a particular game, I do believe in a postseason game, momentum is real.”

As usual at Chavez Ravine, that momentum built as the game went along, rare empty seats in the stands but full-throated scream from the fans, yet another reason the Dodgers blew it by not getting home-field advantage in later rounds.

“I do love being at home because a lot of times that's what perpetuates it, the home crowd, the energy,” said Roberts.

But, seriously, about that bullpen…

Before the game, Dodgers baseball boss Andrew Friedman bravely faced the question of his bullpen, a mess that he created with poor winter signings and unwise midseason inactivity.

Not surprisingly, he defended his guys.

“They've had stretches of good, they've had some stretches where it's been really tough and challenging,” he acknowledged. “At the end of the day, as we're working through it the last couple of weeks, it's not a talent issue.”

In other words, they’re competent relievers just going through a bad, awful, horrible, season-altering stretch?

“Relievers, kind of like place kickers, are tightrope walkers,” Friedman said. “It's what they do for a living. They do well, people forget about them. They don't do well and they're in the ire of everything. So it's tough.”

Read more:Dodgers hit 5 home runs and Blake Snell shines in Game 1 win over Reds

Friedman said it’s a matter of confidence, which is understandable when a group gets hammered all season like these guys.

“And when the confidence is wavering, the execution is off,” Friedman said. “When the execution is off, you get behind and you come in zone and you're just more likely to take on damage. So it's kind of that imperfect storm in a lot of ways.”

Storm, is right. What kind of bullpen fools around with an eight-run lead, as the Dodgers reliever did Tuesday night when threatening to ruin everything?

The bullpen survived, but for how long? This series may soon be over, but Philadelphia awaits. This first step into October was an impressive one. It will also be the easiest one.

Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

The Yankees' bullpen has been much-maligned all season and was the team's weakness heading into the postseason.

So it's no surprise the bullpen was at the forefront of the team's Game 1 loss to the Red Sox on Tuesday -- coupled with the removal of starter Max Fried, of course. But while the decision to pull Fried after 6.1 innings will be scrutinized, bringing in Luke Weaver will also be questioned, and manager Aaron Boone was asked his thoughts on bringing in the right-hander in the spot he did.

"I am just taking that part of the order, then I want [Devin] Williams or [Fernando] Cruz in that kind of [Trevor] Story, [Alex] Bregman [lane]. So I will take Weave at the bottom of the order, especially an out in the books."

Weaver, who became the team's closer on their World Series run a year ago, has struggled in 2025. He finished the regular season with a 3.62 ERA but pitched to a 9.64 ERA in September, ballooned by a couple of bad outings in the middle of the month. But the 32-year-old didn't have it on Tuesday.

With one out in the seventh, Weaver went up against Ceddanne Rafaela, and lost him to a walk after getting ahead in the count 0-2. A hustle double by Nick Sogard put the Yankees in trouble. Nursing a 1-0 lead, Weaver left a pitch up in the zone to pinch-hitter Masataka Yoshida, who laced a two-run single to capture the lead.

"Gets ahead 0-2 with Rafaela there and lost the strike zone," Boone said of the outing. "Placed a couple hits on him where, maybe just a little up with a couple of the pitches more than he wanted. But, you know, getting ahead 0-2 to Rafaela and losing him, that's the one that stinks a little bit."

"Just a really good at-bat, had some really strong at-bats in the past. It’s gone both ways," Weaver said of his at-bat with Rafaela. "That’s a real tough one to swallow when you know you had him in an advantage count. He did a really good job of spoiling some pitches, took some shots, and next thing you know, it’s 3-2, and he did a good job of battling through. Didn’t want to give in, and try to throw a cookie over the plate, still trying to execute. There’s a base open, so I just tried to rifle one and it didn’t go where I wanted."

Entering Tuesday, Rafaela was 2-for-6 with a walk and two home runs against Weaver in his career. There are also three strikeouts in there as well, but Rafaela was victorious when it mattered in Game 1, working a walk after 11 pitches.

Boone was aware of the numbers Rafaela had against Weaver, but felt the spot was right for him.

"I felt good about him going through there, the Sogard and then probably a pinch hit lefty there, just trying to shorten it with Williams and [David] Bednar behind him," Boone said.

Weaver felt his outing overall was "very competitive," but it wasn't perfect and the Red Sox found holes. Weaver allowed two runs without recording an out. Cruz would come in and get the final two outs -- after a two-out walk.

"I know there’s a lot of disappointed people, including myself, but just got to be better," Weaver said.

The Yankees need Weaver and the rest of the bullpen to be better -- Bednar would allow a key insurance run in the ninth -- if they hope to overcome the Red Sox in the Wild Card round, and make a deep October run. The first step is winning Game 2 on Wednesday. 

This year, October started a day early for the Dodgers.

Thanks to their underwhelming regular season, their march toward postseason history began before the month even started.

This season’s team, coaches and players acknowledged repeatedly in recent weeks, had played their way into this spot: Having to begin the playoffs on the last day of September, in a daunting best-of-three wild-card series against the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday; facing the slimmest of margins in their pursuit of back-to-back World Series championships, having won the National League West but failed to secure a top-two playoff spot.

That meant, unlike the last three years, the Dodgers did not have a bye to the division series.

Read more:Plaschke: Dodgers flatten overmatched Reds in unwanted first round. But about that bullpen...

It meant, this fall, they had to hit the ground running.

“The pitfalls are just [avoiding] kind of easing your way into a series,” manager Dave Roberts said Tuesday afternoon.

But, he added declaratively, “I don't see that as a problem.”

In a 10-5 Game 1 defeat of the Reds at Dodger Stadium, it indeed was not.

Shohei Ohtani led off with a home run. Blake Snell was superb in a seven-inning, two-run start. And in a rollocking two-batter sequence in the bottom of the third inning, the Dodgers broke the score wide open, with Teoscar Hernández hitting a three-run bomb moments before Tommy Edman went back-to-back with a solo shot.

The Dodgers’ troublesome bullpen made things uncomfortable at the end, nearly walking the Reds out of a 10-2 deficit in a three-run eighth inning that included four free passes (two of them with the bases loaded) from three different relievers.

Nonetheless, the Dodgers held on. And now, with Game 2 on Wednesday at 6:08 p.m., just one more win will advance them through the opening round.

For most of the night, this game was everything the Dodgers hoped it would be, extending the momentum from their 15-5 finish to the regular season with star-studded offense (they matched a franchise postseason record with five home runs) and dominant starting pitching (Snell’s seven innings were a new personal postseason high).

Ohtani delivered the first blow, taking Reds starter and Los Angeles native Hunter Greene deep on the right-hander’s fourth pitch. Behind 2-and-1 in the count, Greene tried to go inside with his trademark 100-mph fastball. Ohtani, fresh off a 55-homer regular season that should earn him his fourth MVP award, turned it around with a 117.7-mph line drive that rocketed into the right field pavilion.

From there, the Dodgers’ offense never looked back.

In the bottom of the third, the team landed a knockout blow. Hernández got a hanging slider from Greene and — in a scene so reminiscent of his heroics last October — sent a three-run home run sailing deep to left, flipping his bat as he skipped out of the box.

A crowd of 50,555 had barely settled back into its seats before the Dodgers went yard again, this time on a hooking fly ball from Edman that wrapped around the right-field foul pole, giving the Dodgers a 5-0 lead.

That was plenty for Snell, who picked apart a Reds offense that ranked just 14th in scoring and 19th in batting average during the regular season. In a four-hit, nine-strikeout, 91-pitch start, he got quick outs with his fastball early in counts, and snapped off a wicked combination of curveballs and changeups to put them away when he got to two strikes.

The Reds — who were no-hit by Snell last year when he pitched for the San Francisco Giants — didn’t get their first hit until Matt McLain doubled with two outs in the third. And though TJ Friedl walked in the next at-bat, Snell responded with three swing-and-miss changeups to Noelvi Marte to retire the side.

That was the start of 11 consecutive batters Snell would set down in a row, not letting another Cincinnati hitter reach base until Austin Hays’ seventh-inning single sparked a two-run rally that got the Reds on the board.

By then, the Dodgers had kept adding onto their lead. In the fifth, Hernández hit his second home run of the game off right-hander Connor Phillips (one of the Reds’ best relievers late in the season). Ohtani did the same in the sixth, belting his second long ball (also against Phillips) on a 454-foot blast that landed near the top of the right-field stands.

Read more:A 'really grateful' catcher Ben Rortvedt is thrust into Dodgers' postseason plans

The score was 10-2 when Roberts finally turned to his bullpen in the eighth, trying to take no chances by summoning top left-hander Alex Vesia. Vesia, however, wasn’t sharp, retiring only one of the three batters he faced. And after that, the Dodgers flirted with an unthinkable collapse.

Edgardo Henriquez gave up two walks (one to load the bases, another to force in a run) and an RBI single. Jack Dreyer followed with the inning’s fourth free pass, again with the bases loaded, before finally escaping on a strikeout of Tyler Stephenson (who three times swung at what would’ve been yet another ball four) and a pop-up from Ke’Bryan Hayes.

The bullpen concerns will hang like a cloud over the team going forward. Even in the ninth, Blake Treinen had to work around a two-out single from Gavin Lux.

Still, as the calendar officially flips to October, the Dodgers are already one step closer to defending their title.

Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Playoff life comes at you fast. Especially in the treacherous, best-of-three Wild Card round.

The MLB postseason has just started – they only recently hung the playoff bunting at Yankee Stadium, for crying out loud – and the Yankees are already facing elimination after losing to the Red Sox, 3-1, in Tuesday night’s opener. 

A season in which they tied for the best record in the American League – but lost out on a first-round bye because they did not hold a tiebreaker – is suddenly, perhaps cruelly, in peril. Boston, a club that has dominated the Yankees this season, can finish them off Wednesday night in Game 2. In the Bronx, no less.

The Yanks are tangling with a historic rival, one that beat them 9 of 13 during the regular season. And history. Recent history, anyway – in the previous three years of this current MLB playoff format, no team that lost the opener of a Wild Card round ended up winning the series.

We’ll see, of course, if these Yankees can buck that trend. And, even though they knew coming into this series how difficult it would be, they say they can do it.

“We are going to show up (Wednesday) and I expect us to do pretty well,” Aaron Boone said at his post-game press conference. Later, he added, “Look, we have been playing these types of games for a while now. We have been playing with a lot on the line seemingly every single day.

“So (Tuesday) was a great baseball game that we just couldn't get that final punch in. So we will be ready to go, and I expect us to come out and get one (Wednesday).”

Boone’s right about the quality of the contest. It was a taut game filled with brilliant pitching by Boston’s Garret Crochet and Yankee ace Max Fried. Anthony Volpe gave the Yanks an early 1-0 lead with a homer off Crochet. But the Yankee bullpen later surrendered that lead. The Yanks loaded the bases with nobody out in the ninth inning against old buddy Aroldis Chapman, but Chapman, maybe baseball’s best reliever this year, escaped.

Before the game, Boone opined that the 2025 version of the Yankees might be the best he’s ever taken into the playoffs in his tenure as manager, which started in 2018 and has included an October trip every season but one. They won their final eight games of the regular season, were healthy, full of mutual trust and confidence. They also, he said, have “different ways to beat ya.”

Better pluck one from the pile Wednesday night. Maybe it’s Carlos Rodón, the lefty starter who’s taking the ball against Brayan Bello of the Red Sox. Rodón had a terrific season, but still makes some fans nervous with a big start looming. Maybe he needs to be great to save this Yankee season.

Rodón had some October moments during last year’s run to the World Series, but he was also so hyper during a playoff start against the Royals that it seemed to wobble him. Boone says Rodón has learned.

“He has done a really good job since he has been here of learning from some stumbles, learning from some good times,” Boone said. “Last year – I am hoping that serves him well and just really slowing things down, really controlling moments, because that’s an important thing to have.”

Perhaps we should offer these Yankees the benefit of the doubt. After all, they resurrected themselves later in this season, even after some of their own fans wrote them off as they fumbled their AL East lead and plunged into a morass of poor play. They pushed aside their problems with fundamentals and, while they obviously haven’t solved all their bullpen issues, added help there at the trade deadline.

Their superlative offense, which led baseball in runs per game, covered up some deficiencies, too. By August, the Yanks were on fire, started beating good teams and finished 34-14 over their final 48 games, best in MLB.

“We’ve been doing it all year,” said Aaron Judge. “There’s a lot of veterans in this clubhouse. We’ve been through some stuff. Been to the World Series, been through some tough moments. We’ll go out and play our game. We’ll be good.”

If they’re not, they’re cooked. Seems weird for it to get so real so quickly, considering there’s no October chill yet (it was 77 degrees at first pitch Tuesday). Heck, Game 1 wasn’t even played in October. But here we are.

From the brink, can the Yankees win Wednesday night and push the Red Sox close to the abyss, too? After Game 1, they sure said all the right things, noting that they had done some of the right things during the season.

Now they must do them again, just to survive another day.

Aaron Judge had not yet seen the video of Jazz Chisholm Jr. or read his quotes. But he is the captain of the Yankees, the video was already blazing a path around the digital universe, and I wanted Judge’s thoughts so that I could finalize mine.

He knows better than any of us how a development plays in the clubhouse. His opinion and context are far more valuable here than mine.

Like Aaron Boone’s decision to remove Max Fried in the Yankees’ 3-1 loss to Boston in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series (totally defensible; we’ll get to that later), Chisholm’s cameo seemed sure to be a major talking point for the next day.

“I haven’t seen it,” Judge said, politely and truthfully.

Here was the briefing: Chisholm did not start because Boone used a right-heavy lineup against Boston’s left-handed ace, Garrett Crochet. Amed Rosario started at second. Chisholm replaced him on defense in the eighth.

After the game, as reporters waited in the middle of the clubhouse for Fried to speak, Chisholm walked to his locker. Reporters and camera operators followed.

Asked if he was surprised that he wasn’t starting, Chisholm turned his back to the group, fiddled with the plastic hangers in the locker and said, “I mean, I guess, yeah.”

Another reporter followed up by asking if he and Boone had a conversation about it.

“It’s a little conversation, not much,” Chisholm said. “But yeah. You just move forward after it.”

Chisholm is a nice guy. His tone remained mild. But his body language and words were not a good fit for the internet and its desire for controversy. He should have known better than to risk a stir with his team already facing elimination (that’s my take, not Judge’s).

Whatever the nuances, it seemed that, between the Jazz interview and the Fried decision, the Yankees were about to get roasted for their drama.

Standing at his locker after his postgame scrum, Judge considered all this.

Speaking of the Chisholm situation, he said, “It will cause some drama on the outside, but in here we’ll definitely be good. Inside this clubhouse, we’re all good. We’re pulling for each other. We’ll be good. There’s always a storm on the outside -- but we can’t work that way.”

Judge suggested that he would handle the situation internally, but did not make it sound as if it would be a major crisis or cleanup.

Jazz Chisholm Jr. was asked if he was surprised about not being in the starting lineup for Game 1

"I guess, yeah" pic.twitter.com/Nw5ooUX9qf

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) October 1, 2025

The weird part about Chisholm’s postgame performance was that I’d spoken to a Yankees person (not Boone) before the game and asked how Jazz had taken the news. That person said that Boone had communicated effectively, and that Chisholm had taken it well and was in a good place.

After the game, a few other Yankee people said that Chisholm was not acting angry behind the scenes. Perhaps he was embarrassed and didn’t want to talk about the manager’s decision, those people speculated. Chisholm remains a popular teammate. This did not feel like a five-alarm fire.

Before any of this happened, it seemed that tomorrow's discourse would involve Boone’s Fried decision. That one was actually fairly straightforward: according not only to Boone but to scouts watching the game (one in person, one on television), Fried looked tired in the sixth inning.

In that frame, he induced a groundout, issued a walk and got out of it with a ground ball double play. His velocity was fine, but when a pitcher begins to tire, it’s not the velocity that goes -- it’s the command.

“I felt like his command was not as good those final few [innings],” Boone said. “He was making so many big pitches and his stuff was good. Look, he gave us what we needed and felt really good about the outing he put forth. But I felt pretty convicted, especially when we got the double play. Let's go get one more hitter and be good.”

In the dugout after the inning, Boone asked Fried if he could get that one more hitter, lefty Jarren Duran. Fried said yes. He did not say, “Let me get the next few guys, too.” He is a grown-up, and self-aware. He was just about done.

"I definitely exerted a lot of energy trying to get out of that, but I definitely had enough in the tank for whatever the team needed,” Fried said.

An observation about Fried, earned from covering the team this season: As a first-year New Yorker, he is excessively careful with his public comments. He is always trying to walk a line that avoids any whiff of controversy.

He is still learning how to execute that strategy. If it sounded like he was criticizing Boone’s decision -- well, I’m almost certain that he wasn’t. He was just trying to get out of there without creating a headline one way or the other.

Chisholm, at least, took care of that for him.

On to tomorrow.

Max Fried was spectacular in his Yankees postseason debut on Tuesday night. 

He worked his way through three efficient frames to open the game, holding the rival Red Sox to just two hits, but then was faced with trouble in each of the next few innings. 

The ace left-hander worked around two-on-and-two-out jams in both the top of the fourth and the fifth, getting Jaren Duran to strikeout swinging and then Yankee killer Alex Bregman to groundout to third, respectively. 

He began to labor again after issuing a one-out walk in the sixth, but was able to get the speedy Nate Eaton to ground into a hard-hit inning-ending double to dance through the frame. 

Fried admitted that he exerted a lot of energy trying to work out of those jams, but he felt he had enough left in the tank for whatever the team needed. 

Aaron Boone decided that was just the leadoff man, Duran, whom he got to roll over for the first out of the top of the seventh, before turning things over to the bullpen. 

It didn’t take long for that decision to immediately backfire on the Yanks. 

Luke Weaver entered and immediately allowed the next three batters to reach, with the big blow being a pinch-hit go-ahead two-run single from Masataka Yoshida. 

Boston added another run against David Bednar later in the game, but that inning would go down as the difference in the Wild Card series-opening loss. 

Despite things not working out, Boone stood by the decision to pull Fried with 102 pitches. 

“He gave us what we needed,” the skipper said. “They pressured him pretty good in the fourth, fifth, sixth. Had a couple of baserunners in each inning. Felt like he kind of cruised through the first few and ends up pitching great, but had to work pretty hard there.

“I was going to have the sixth be the end -- after we finished with the double play, I wanted him to go out and get Duran and felt like we were lined up pretty well from there.”

New York will look to stay alive Wednesday with Carlos Rodon on the mound.

Max Fried delivered the kind of high-level start that befits a $218-million ace and departed Game 1 of the AL Wild Card Series with his Yankees ahead of the Red Sox. But the Yankee bullpen -- one of their potential postseason danger zones -- blew the lead. 

Now, the Yanks face elimination in their own ballpark. 

Boston beat the Yankees, 3-1, Tuesday night in the opener of this best-of-three affair, which means the Sox can advance by beating the Yanks again in Game 2 Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium. 

Luke Weaver came in with one out and nobody on in the seventh and did not have it. He gave up two runs, squandering a 1-0 lead. That meant the Yanks had to try to rally against Boston ace Garrett Crochet, who was amazing. 

Here are the takeaways...

- The Yankees ranked 23rd in MLB in relief ERA during the regular season, despite some talented arms, trade-deadline additions and role shifts. No wonder it was a source of such consternation through the summer. Yankee manager Aaron Boone doubtless will be second-guessed for taking out Fried for a reliever when he did, even if Fried had thrown 102 pitches. Fried only exceeded that number eight times during the regular season, when his high was 111. David Bednar gave up a Boston insurance run on an RBI double by Alex Bregman in the ninth.

- In the bottom of the ninth, Aaron Judge, whose postseason numbers are well-documented, came up with a runner on first and no one out and Boston closer Aroldis Chapman on the mound. Judge singled up the middle, his second hit of the game, to put the tying run on base. Cody Bellinger followed with a single to load the bases and put the potential tying run in scoring position. But Chapman struck out Giancarlo Stanton, got Jazz Chisholm Jr. on a flyout to right field and fanned Trent Grisham to seal the win.

- Volpe’s second-inning homer was an opposite-field shot to right that traveled 382 feet and gave the Yanks a 1-0 lead. Volpe turned around a Crochet fastball clocked at 97 miles per hour for his second career Postseason home run. The first was his grand slam in Game 4 of last year’s World Series against the Dodgers. 

- The Yanks held a 1-0 lead into the seventh inning, but after Fried came out, Weaver gave up the advantage. With one out, he walked No. 8 hitter Ceddane Rafaela in an 11-pitch battle. The next hitter, Nick Sogard, doubled to put runners on second and third. Red Sox manager Alex Cora then sent up pinch-hitter Masataka Yoshida so he could have a lefty hitter face Weaver. Yoshida swatted a two-run single into center to put Boston ahead, 2-1. Fernando Cruz relieved Weaver and got two outs sandwiched around a walk, limiting the damage. 

- Fried, who had a blazing finish to his regular season, was terrific, throwing 6.1 scoreless innings and leaving to a huge ovation once he had gotten the first out of the seventh. Fried allowed four hits while striking out six and walking three. He threw 102 pitches, 63 of them for strikes. Fried, who was making his 21st career postseason appearance (13th start), trimmed his playoff ERA from 5.10 to 4.66 with the gem. While his final line was spotless, run-wise, he did encounter some trouble. To his credit, he wriggled out of it each time, though.

- In back-to-back innings midway through the game, Fried wobbled but did not allow a run. With two out in the fourth, he walked Carlos Narváez on a 3-2 pitch after narrowly missing striking him out and then gave up a bloop double to right to Nate Eaton. Amidst the threat, Fried fell behind the next hitter, Jarren Duran, 3-0, but rebounded to strike him out with a breaking ball. When he came off the mound afterward, the normally stoic Fried slapped his glove in celebration of getting a big out. Still, it took effort to get through the danger – Fried threw 24 pitches in the fourth inning alone, running his pitch count up to 61. In the fifth, he again walked a hitter on a 3-2 pitch with two out -- this time it was Rob Refsnyder -- and then gave up a single to Trevor Story. But Fried retired Alex Bregman on a grounder.

- Fried threw seven different pitches during his outing, according to Baseball Savant, and generated 19 swings-and-misses overall. The Red Sox swung at his curveball 10 times and missed eight times. He threw a particularly gorgeous one to strike out Story to end the third inning with a runner on second. 

- The Yankees had an early opportunity when Paul Goldschmidt and Judge clocked consecutive singles to start the first inning. But Crochet dealt with it quickly. First, the Boston lefty got Bellinger to swing-and-miss at 98.7-mph heat for strike three. Then he got Stanton to hit into an inning-ending, 6-4-3 double play. 

Game MVP: Garrett Crochet

Crochet, who allowed four hits and one run across 7.2 terrific innings. He struck out 11 and walked none. After allowing a solo homer to Anthony Volpe in the second inning, Crochet retired 17 straight hitters until he gave up a single to Volpe in the eighth. Crochet fanned the last batter he faced, Austin Wells, catching him looking at a fastball clocked at 100.2 miles per hour. Crochet threw 117 pitches, 78 for strikes.

Highlights

Max Fried gets his first postseason K as a Yankee in the midst of a scoreless first inning pic.twitter.com/TFwZRGNY8L

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) September 30, 2025

ANTHONY VOLPE GETS THE YANKEES ON THE BOARD FIRST IN GAME 1! pic.twitter.com/cwSf9tZpzO

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) September 30, 2025

Max Fried strands ‘em! pic.twitter.com/c9zO0f2p77

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) September 30, 2025

What's next

The Yankees and Red Sox meet again for Game 2 of the Wild Card series on Wednesday evening as New York looks to stave off elimination. First pitch is set for 6:08 p.m.

Carlos Rodon will take the mound against Brayan Bello.

What we learned in Red Sox Game 1 win over Yankees: Alex Cora's still got it originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

It’s widely believed that the Red Sox lack the high-end talent to go on a World Series run. Rightly so.

What’s often missing from that discussion, though, is the advantage the Red Sox have in the dugout. Because while there may not be easily accessible, tangible evidence to prove it, the reality is that Alex Cora is a master of his craft — one whose comfort in big moments gives the Red Sox an edge over just about any team in baseball.

Cora’s feel for the game was on display in multiple areas in Tuesday night’s dramatic 3-1 victory over the New York Yankees in Game 1 of the Wild Card Round.

Most significantly, Cora outmaneuvered counterpart Aaron Boone with the management of his ace pitcher.

Boone pulled Max Fried after 6.1 scoreless innings and the Red Sox immediately made the Yankees pay, scoring two runs off New York’s shaky bullpen in the seventh to turn a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead in the blink of an eye.

Cora, meanwhile, sent Garrett Crochet out for the seventh inning at 94 pitches. Crochet needed just six pitches to end that frame, buzzing through the 3-4-5 spots in New York’s order, so Cora sent him back out for the eighth.

Even after Anthony Volpe — whose solo home run in the second inning accounted for Crochet’s lone run allowed all night — hit a one-out single, Cora did not go to the bullpen, where he stashes the best one-two late-inning combo in Garrett Whitlock and Aroldis Chapman.

Crochet rewarded his manager by striking out Austin Wells, who stood by and watched as a 100.2 mph pitch hit the bottom of the strike zone.

From there, Cora went to Chapman — not Whitlock — for the final out of the eighth. In doing so, he kept Boone’s best pinch-hitting option — lefty Ben Rice — on the bench. While Chapman made things hairy by loading the bases in the bottom of the ninth, he ultimately delivered the save by retiring Giancarlo Stanton (strikeout), Jazz Chisholm (flyout) and Trent Grisham (strikeout) to end the game.

Cora’s decision-making was under scrutiny before the game even began, as his starting lineup for Game 1 of the postseason was …. interesting. He utilized his lineup for facing lefties, with Rob Refsnyder in the leadoff spot and Romy Gonzalez as the cleanup hitter, and he had Nick Sogard and Nate Eaton in the starting lineup.

And though lefty killers Refsnyder and Gonzalez didn’t deliver, Eaton (1-for-3 with a double) and Sogard (2-for-4 with a double, go-ahead run scored in seventh) did.

And when given the opportunity to insert Masataka Yoshida as a pinch hitter for Refsnyder, Cora did it immediately. Yoshida came through with the hit of the night.

(Cora also called on Nathaniel Lowe as a pinch hitter for Gonzalez in the seventh, and Lowe delivered a line drive. Aaron Judge, however, was able to make the inning-ending catch.)

Cora’s reach extends beyond the box score, too. Sogard’s double — which followed an 11-pitch walk by Ceddanne Rafaela in the seventh — came thanks to heads-up base running when Sogard recognized that Judge would be fielding the ball in the right-center field gap. Sogard didn’t hesitate, bursting for second and beating Judge’s throw.

Judge missed time this season due to a flexor strain in his throwing arm, and he’s clearly been bothered by it since returning to the field earlier this month. Sogard taking second was no accident.

“That’s preparation,” Cora said of Sogard taking the extra base. “We talk about their outfielders and what we can do and what we cannot do, and he saw it right away and took advantage of it.”

A masterclass? Perhaps an overstatement. Yet just like he did several times in the Red Sox’ run to a championship in 2018, Cora pushed every right button in this victory in New York, one where there was little to no room for error.

For this Red Sox roster to win playoff games, they’re going to have to be a grind like this one. They’re not good enough to win going away from any teams at this time of year. Stacking victories and winning series won’t be easy.

Yet for as long as Cora is helming the ship, they’ll have a chance to win every night. He’s just that good.

Here’s some more of what we learned in this tremendously dramatic victory to begin Boston’s 2025 postseason run.

Max Fried deserved better

On multiple fronts, Yankees ace Max Fried got hosed. The aforementioned decision by Boone to pull him from the game after 102 pitches in the seventh was a case of overmanaging. Nobody was on base, and Fried was cruising. Factor in New York’s shaky bullpen (every time the camera cut to Yankees fans after Fried exited the game, they looked flat-out terrified to see what would happen next), and Fried deserved to be treated like an ace in this moment.

Yet outside of that, Fried got squeezed twice by home plate umpire Junior Valentine, both times coming on what should have been called strike threes against Carlos Narvaez. The first time came in the top of the fourth, when a 3-2 pitch clipped the top corner of the strike zone but was called a ball. It didn’t result in any runs, but it led to Fried throwing 11 extra pitches — high-stress pitches, after an Eaton double — that inning.

The second came in the sixth, when a 2-2 pitch at the top of the zone was called ball three. Narvaez eventually walked on the ninth pitch of his plate appearance. That one hurt less, as Fried induced an inning-ending double play from the next batter, but the added stress contributed to some of the wear on Fried, leading to his early (relatively speaking) exit from the game.

Seeing Fried watch helplessly from the dugout as the bullpen immediately blew the game must have been a nightmare scenario for Yankees fans to endure. Red Sox fans didn’t mind, though.

(Lest there be any confusion, Valentine missed calls on the Red Sox, too. Crochet should have struck out Austin Wells on the sixth pitch of his final at-bat, but overcame the missed call to strike out the catcher two pitches later. And Chapman should have had a 1-2 count on Grisham with two outs in the ninth, but a missed call made it a 2-1 count in Grisham’s favor.)

Garrett Crochet was every bit of the ace you’d want him to be

The numbers are obvious enough: 7.2 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 11 K. But Crochet was even better than the stat line would indicate.

Outside of leaving one pitch over the heart of the plate to Anthony Volpe in the second, resulting in an opposite-field home run to right field, Crochet was in complete command. And when the bullpen sat empty in the top of the eighth when he was at 100 pitches, it was clear that Cora and everyone else in that dugout was not afraid of the lefty surpassing his season-high of 112 pitches.

Crochet retired 17 straight Yankees before Volpe singled with one out in the eighth. Crochet responded, finishing the outing with triple-digit gas — leaving Austin Wells flabbergasted in the box. It was an appropriate exclamation point on an outstanding postseason debut with the Red Sox.

Cora said after the game that Crochet told him on Monday that the manager would only need to make one phone call to the bullpen in Game 1. Crochet was asked what gave him the confidence to make that proclamation.

“Just being arrogant, to be honest,” Crochet said. “I didn’t actually expect that to be the case. But when he sent me back out there, I was determined to leave it that way.”

As for his mindset after allowing the home run?

“So what?” he said. “Next pitch.”

Don’t forget Trevor Story’s slide

Alex Bregman’s RBI double in the top of the ninth provided a critical insurance run — imagine how much higher the stress levels would have been in the ninth inning if Chapman was only protecting a one-run lead — for the Red Sox. But it was made possible by a veteran decision and slide from Trevor Story.

The shortstop ripped a two-out single into left field, and after David Bednar threw over to first base twice, Story knew he could get an extra step on his jump and try to swipe a bag. He accomplished that task, stealing second and sliding in just ahead of Jazz Chisholm’s tag.

The Yankees challenged, but there was no doubt. Story was safe.

Bregman took a borderline strike two call, fouled off a good splitter on the next pitch, and then squared up the next one to drive that run home.

Bregman and Story, the veterans of this squad, went a combined 4-for-9 with a walk while also handling every ball hit their way. They were steady, and they delivered at a critical moment in the ninth.

The Wilyer Abreu catch was insane

A lot happened in this game, especially at the end. But don’t forget the play that ended the eighth inning.

It was nuts.

When Chapman entered the game in the eighth, he inherited Anthony Volpe on first base. Volpe was literally dancing off first base, knowing that Chapman doesn’t exactly have an elite pickoff move. Chapman did throw over, eventually throwing to first base a third time, which granted Volpe second base on MLB’s three-disengagement rule.

Perhaps Chapman’s head was spinning, or perhaps he did it on purpose so that he wouldn’t have the distraction anymore. Either way, he did his job and induced a lazy fly ball off the bat of Jose Caballeros.

Ceddanne Rafaela, arguably the best center fielder in baseball, drifted to his left and settled under the ball, putting himself in position to make an easy catch by his standards. What Rafaela didn’t know was that Wilyer Abreu was streaking across the field at full speed, heading directly toward him.

Somehow, Abreu not only made the catch but completely avoided making contact with Rafaela, ending the inning and avoiding the disaster that would have followed with the game-tying run crossing the plate. Abreu is the reining Gold Glove winner in right field, so he knows what he’s doing. But that was close.

We’ll find out what the Yankees are made of

The Red Sox showed in Game 1 that they have grit. The world will learn what the Yankees are made of in Game 2.

With only three years of evidence, the loser of Game 1 in the Wild Card Series has always gone to be eliminated. Whether or not that trend continues in this series depends on how New York responds to a gut-punch of a loss in front of their home fans.

Brayan Bello, who went 2-1 with a 1.89 ERA in three starts against the Yankees this year, will be opposed by Carlos Rodon, who went 1-2 with a 5.74 ERA. Five members of New York’s bullpen were used in Game 1, while only Chapman was used out of Boston’s bullpen.

The odds are in Boston’s favor, and it will take an inspiring recovery from the Yankees — something not typically associated with the Aaron Boone era — for the series to live on until Thursday.