The Red Sox said they were going to come right after Aaron Judge in this series, but they didn’t stick to their word.
At least they kept him in the park.
Judge was walked three times, struck out once and came within a few feet of a historic home run, but ended the night stuck at 60, one shy of Roger Maris’ American League record.
Despite keeping Judge quiet, the Red Sox fell apart in the late innings and took a 5-4 loss to the Yankees in the Bronx. The win clinched a playoff berth for the Yankees, who have now qualified for the postseason in 24 of the last 28 years.
The Sox were up 4-3 heading into the eighth, when the Yankees scratched together a run on a single, stolen base, ground ball and sacrifice fly to tie the game against Ryan Brasier.
In the 10th, Josh Donaldson hit the game-winning RBI single off Kaleb Ort.
The story of the night was Judge, who had his entire family as well as the entire Maris family watching him at Yankee Stadium. Whenever Judge came to bat, everybody in the park stood up, most holding their cell phones high in the air in case Judge made history. The pressure wasn’t what kept Judge in the yard; the Red Sox cautiousness was.
Manager Alex Cora said before the game that the Sox would attack Judge with starter Michael Wacha, who entered the game having held Judge to an 0-for-14 with nine strikeouts off him. But the first time Wacha met Judge in the first inning, he walked him on four pitches.
His second time up, Wacha walked him again, though at least this time he threw him a few strikes first.
There was nowhere to put Judge his third time up in the fifth inning, when Wacha had men on first and second and one out. This time he attacked, and Judge went down swinging over a changeup.
A Giancarlo Stanton homer in the sixth inning put the Yankees ahead 3-0, but the Red Sox answered with a big inning in the seventh.
Rookie Triston Casas stepped up and cranked a leadoff home run, his third of the year. It was his first taste of Yankee Stadium and the left-handed hitting Casas looks like he’ll have some fun hitting there. He hit a line drive that barely cleared the fence down the right-field line, a prototypical homer in the Yanks’ new ballpark.
After Kiké Hernandez and Yu Chang reached base, Reese McGuire came off the bench to hit for Connor Wong and smoked another one over the right-field fence for a three-run shot that put the Sox ahead 4-3.
The Yankees threatened in the bottom of the inning, when Kyle Higashioka doubled off John Schreiber to bring up Judge with first base open. Schreiber had no interest in facing him; he walked Judge on five pitches and escaped the seventh unscathed.
Brasier gave up the game-tying run in the eighth, then Judge nearly made history in the ninth.
On a 2-2 count against Matt Barnes, Judge hammered a high fastball high into the Bronx sky and the nation held its breath. Hernandez tracked back to the warning track and camped under it, then hauled in the catch just a few feet in front of the fence in dead center.
The ball traveled 404 feet at 113 mph off the bat, but didn’t have quite enough on this chilly September evening. It would’ve been a home run in 15 ballparks, according to the Fox broadcast.
Wacha finished with six innings of three-run ball and was in line for the win until Brasier blew it in the eighth. Soon to be a free agent, Wacha has a 2.70 ERA.
With the loss, the Red Sox are 6-10 against the Yankees this year.
Rich Hill takes the mound against Gerrit Cole on Friday night. Judge is 2-for-4 with a double lifetime off Hill.
