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.
