New York benefited from this.
The New York Yankees came away with an easy two-game sweep of the Boston Red Sox in the Wild Card round of the American League playoffs.
The Yankees did exactly what they had to do on both sides of the baseball, completely dominating Boston when it came to the pitching side of things.
Offensively speaking, the Yankees were just as great, scoring a combined 18 runs, putting up nine in each contest. The Yankees were able to do a lot of good in Wednesday night's win, but a lot of that was questioned afterward by some of the players on the Red Sox. Some players clearly didn't feel like Sonny Gray should have been pulled, including Gray, who only threw 4.2 innings, allowing six hits and two earned runs.
Gray didn't walk any and struck out five. After coming out of the game, the Yankees offense was able to get going, putting together great at-bats against Erik Miller, Garrett Crochet, and Garrett Whitlock. As a whole, the three only pitched 1.2 innings, allowing eight hits and seven runs.
Willson Contreras and Gray had a lot to say about why they believed that shouldn't have been the case after the game.
“It’s not enough when you have talent or you have data or you have computers that’s telling you what to do,” Contreras said. “Because this is baseball, and the data is here to help us, but at the end of the day we’re going to have to need experience and veteran guys to win games.”
“I think I’m the best pitcher in the American League going through the order the third time; I think that’s a fact,” said Gray, per The Athletic.
“Yeah, I mean, I would have liked to live or die with me in that moment, but that’s the competitor I am. And, yeah, I think you can probably ask the guys and they felt the same way. I felt strong. I felt confident. I felt convicted. But what can you do, you know?”
As a competitor, it's not crazy to think Gray is right in a scenario like this.
It didn't feel like he had to be taken out in that scenario, but a lot of skippers and other decision-makers around Major League Baseball take guys out in moments like that when they're going through a lineup for the third time. It's one of those things that can either come back to haunt a team or be the right decision.
I'm personally not the biggest fan of not allowing Gray to stay on the mound, but that's just my opinion. It obviously worked out for the Yankees, but this was another time that showed that maybe a team should have trusted its gut instead of listening to an iPad.
