NEW YORK — All season, the Yankees have looked toward October. After a 3–1 loss to the Red Sox in Game 1 of the best-of-three American League Wild Card series, they might get one day there.
After a regular season that felt more precarious than the numbers would indicate—94 wins, tied for most in the AL; 849 runs scored, most in the majors—the Yankees’ 2025 campaign now resides on the brink. For most of the year, their talent washed away opponents. On Tuesday, the flaws that always lurked beneath the surface broke through.
Their best player can’t throw. Their bullpen can’t preserve leads. Their manager sometimes seems to move without sufficient urgency at this time of year. All three sank them Tuesday.
Things started out well: Their major offseason acquisition, lefty Max Fried, did everything the team could possibly have hoped for, scattering four hits and three walks over 6 ⅓ scoreless innings and twice pitching out of jams. Well, almost everything: Perhaps he could have gotten another batter or two. After the game, he said he believed he had more in the tank. But manager Aaron Boone was committed to sending him out only for the lefthanded Jarren Duran in the top of the seventh with a 1–0 lead, and then handing the ball to right-handed erstwhile closer Luke Weaver for the righties, beginning with Ceddanne Rafaela.
“Felt like we were lined up,” Boone said.
A year ago—or even six months ago—that might have been true. Weaver was unhittable last season and had a 1.05 ERA over the first two months of this one, but after he missed 17 days with a strained left hamstring, that figure was 5.31. In seven career plate appearances against Weaver, Rafaela has a 1.762 OPS. Weaver got him to an 0–2 count, usually a good spot against a hitter who had the 18th-worst walk-to-strikeout ratio in baseball this year. But Weaver could not close. Nine pitches later, he left a four-seamer well outside, and Rafaela trotted to first.
Up next came utilityman Nick Sogard. With a 1–1 count, Weaver made approximately the pitch he wanted—a changeup on the outside corner—but Sogard lined it up the middle. Neither center fielder Trent Grisham nor right fielder Aaron Judge charged the ball, and as Sogard sprinted around first, Judge lobbed the ball to second. This sort of play has become routine for the likely AL MVP since he strained the flexor tendon in his right arm in July. He cannot throw at full strength. Last year, Judge averaged 88.1 mph on throws and maxed out at 95.9 mph. On the Sogard play, that figure was 73.2 mph.
As he has been doing since he returned to the outfield in August after six weeks of rehab, he downplayed the injury after the game. “I’m just trying to make a play,” he said.
In any case, Masataka Yoshida lined the next pitch into center to score Rafaela and Sogard for all the offense they would need. “That’s preparation,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said of Sogard’s stretch for second. “We talk about their outfielders and what we can do or what we cannot do, and [Sogard] saw it right away and took advantage of it.”
Indeed, the Red Sox have found the Yankees’ weaknesses. And New York cannot turn to history for much consolation: Since the current postseason format debuted in 2022, all 12 teams that won Game 1 of the wild card series advanced. Only two teams—the Padres in ’22 and the Brewers last year—even pushed the series to the decisive third game. Meanwhile, the Yankees were 4–9 against the Red Sox this year, including 2–5 at Yankee Stadium. After a century of dominating their little brothers from up I-95, the Yankees have not beaten the Red Sox in a playoff series since ’03, when outfielder Jasson Domínguez was eight months old. Since then, Boston has taken the ’04 AL Championship Series, the ’18 AL Division Series and the ’21 wild card game. (In fact, when New York trailed the Astros 3–0 in the ’22 ALCS, the Yankees watched highlights from the Red Sox’ comeback in the ’04 ALCS. It didn’t work: Houston won Game 4 and the series.)
No, any hope will have to come from inside. Judge, who has begun to develop a reputation as a player whose regular-season success does not carry over to October, went 2-for-4 on Tuesday. Shortstop Anthony Volpe, whose lifeless bat and listless glove made him the most hated man in New York this summer who doesn’t live in Gracie Mansion, hit a second-inning home run and fielded the ball cleanly. His teammates, too, largely avoided the boneheaded defensive plays that plagued them during last year’s run. They have Carlos Rodón, an 11-year veteran who just authored perhaps the finest season of his career, taking the mound in Game 2 against Brayan Bello, who will make his postseason debut. And they have all that talent. If they hope to make it to Oct. 2, it will have to rise to the surface, and to the occasion.