There are losses, and then there are the kinds of losses like last night.
The Red Sox opened their American League Wild Card Series against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium and walked away with a 9-0 loss. Not close. Not complicated. The Yankees controlled the game, pulled away late, and put Boston in a position where Wednesday night now comes with absolutely no safety net.
Trevor Story knows exactly what that means.
Trevor Story Says Red Sox Cannot Dwell on Game 1
Story went 1-for-3 with a double and a strikeout in the loss, but his comments afterward carried more weight than anything Boston managed offensively.
“There’s no time to sit around and feel sorry for ourselves or anything like that,” Story said. “We’ve got to keep these spirits up and come back tomorrow. That’s why it’s a series. I think we learned that last year.”
There is really no room for anything else now.
Boston can analyze the 9-0 score later. It can dig through the missed opportunities, the pitching decisions, and the at-bats that went nowhere. But none of that changes the immediate assignment.
Win Wednesday, or the season is over.
Story was asked directly about that reality.
“You said it. Our backs are against the wall,” Story said. “It’s time to win… we either continue playing or we don’t. I feel good about our chances.”
That is about as straightforward as it gets.
Ben Rice Powers Yankees Offense
The Yankees did not need much offense early, but eventually they got plenty.
Ben Rice finished 4-for-5 with two home runs, including a grand slam, and was at the center of New York’s biggest offensive moments.
Austin Wells got the Yankees on the board in the second inning with an RBI single. Rice then made it 2-0 in the bottom of the fifth with a solo homer.
For a while, that was enough.
Boston simply could not solve Yankees starter Cam Schlittler.
Rice added an RBI single in the seventh to extend the lead to 3-0. Later in the inning, Luis Garcia Jr. grounded into a double play that allowed another run to score.
At that point, the game was already slipping away from Boston.
Then the eighth inning turned it into a rout.
Cam Schlittler Shuts Down Boston
Schlittler gave the Yankees exactly the kind of start a team wants in a postseason opener.
He allowed only two hits and one walk across 6 1/3 scoreless innings while striking out 10.
Ten.
Boston never found a sustained offensive rhythm against him, and New York never had to operate under much pressure.
That matters in a short series.
The Red Sox did get a solid effort from their own starter, Payton Tolle, who allowed one run on five hits and one walk over 4 2/3 innings. He struck out four and kept Boston within striking distance.
The problem was that striking distance means very little when the offense is not generating runs.
Yankees Blow Game Open in Eighth
Wells added another run with a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the eighth.
Then Rice came up again.
And this time, he ended whatever suspense remained.
Rice launched a grand slam that pushed the score to 9-0 and turned a difficult night for Boston into a complete blowout.
That was the final margin.
The Yankees got dominant starting pitching, timely offense, and then a late eruption. The Red Sox got a decent start from Tolle and almost nothing else.
Now, stay with me, because this is where postseason baseball becomes brutally simple.
Nobody gets extra credit for how ugly Game 1 looked. Boston does not start Wednesday down nine runs. The scoreboard resets.
But the series situation does not.
Red Sox Face Elimination in Game 2
Game 2 is scheduled for 8:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, and Boston enters it with its season on the line.
That is the entire equation.
Story’s message after the loss was not complicated because it did not need to be. There is no time for a long recovery process and no room for emotional hangovers.
The Red Sox got beaten badly in Game 1.
Now they have one night to make sure it does not become their final game of the season.
Story said their backs are against the wall.
On Wednesday, everybody will find out how they respond.
