It’s always a nice feeling when the teams around you do the things you need them to do help with playoff positioning, isn’t it?
That’s what happened for the Red Sox (82-68) on Monday night, as Boston was off after beating the Yankees (83-67) 6-4 on Sunday Night Baseball to avoid being swept by their biggest rivals in a crucial late season series.
Here’s the help Boston received on Monday from their fellow teams at the top of the American League:
- With the Rangers (79-72) losing to the Astros (82-69), Boston is now 3.5 games up ahead of Texas for a playoff spot
- Houston’s win over their cross-state rival helps them gain ground on Boston, but still see them a half-game behind the Red Sox for the second wild card position heading into Tuesday
- Yankees got stomped 7-0 by the Twins (66-84), dropping game one of their three-game set at Target Field in Minneapolis
While a Yankees loss is always sweet for Red Sox fans, every loss down the stretch of the season is going to be even sweeter.
Monday’s loss puts the Red Sox just a game behind New York for the top wild card spot in the American League - a position that would determine who will get all three home games of the three-game wild card round this postseason if the teams ultimately end up finishing in these two spots.
Even with the Yankees taking care of business on both Friday and Saturday night at Fenway, we all know the Bronx Bombers want no part of playing three-consecutive postseason games at baseball’s oldest ballpark. They’d much rather play in their shoebox in the South Bronx, and I don’t blame them. Their roster is engineered for success in that park.
If the Red Sox play at their ceiling come October, it shouldn’t matter where they face the Yankees. Even with Boston dropping the series this past weekend, they remain 9-4 against the Yankees on the season - a mark that includes a 5-3 record behind enemy lines.
Pick a time, pick a place, and the Red Sox are confident they can handle the Yankees.
With that said, they’d much rather get their hands on them with the CITGO sign in the background.
They’ll be in a good position to continue solidifying their spot in the postseason with a three-game series at home opening Tuesday against the Athletics (70-80).
Boston just took 2 out of 3 from the A’s out in Sacramento, with their offense rising from the dead in both game one and game two of the series. Sure it may have been a product of the ballpark (Sactown has become a mini Coors Field, of sorts, for hitters), but Boston’s lineup was-and-is clearly a bad matchup for A’s starters Luis Morales (4-1, 3.08 ERA) and Jeffrey Springs (10-11, 4.28).
Boston will have another chance to knock around Springs on Tuesday, as he’ll take the mound for the A’s. The 32-year-old lefty is a mostly-forgotten one-time Red Sox, spending one dreadful season as a reliever in Boston as a member of the atrocious 2020 team (24-36) - a season that really should be wiped from the record books all together given all the weirdness that was happening around the sport and the world at large.
Springs had a career-high 7.08 ERA across 20.1 innings of work in 18 total appearances. If you don’t remember that, I don’t blame you.
Something you almost certainly remember heading into Tuesday’s matchup is last week’s MLB debut of young Connelly Early (1-0, 0.00 ERA), who tied a Red Sox rookie debut record with 11 strikeouts against Oakland in a dominant 6-0 win for Boston.
Tuesday will mark his Fenway debut, with fans clamoring to see if last Wednesday was a preview of what’s to come for the 23-year-old down the stretch run of 2025.
First pitch in Boston is set for 6:45 p.m. ET.
Tom Carroll is a contributor for Roundtable, with boots-on-the-ground coverage of all things Boston sports. He's a digital content producer for WEEI.com, and a native of Lincoln, RI.