Roger Rubin: Yankees rise to the occasion by pounding Red Sox, earning tiebreaker
Jose Caballero of the Yankees reacts after his ninth-inning three-run home run against the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium on Sunday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
If one were looking for some kind of sign that the Yankees can shake off all their injuries and fulfill their projection as the favorite to win the American League pennant, this might have been a good one.
Sunday's game against the Red Sox, No. 137 of the season for the Yankees, was their first with something truly tangible on the line, and they more than met the moment.
In a contest that would decide the winner of the 13-game season series between the two contenders and give one the tiebreaker,
the Yankees decimated the Red Sox, 16-1, before 45,256 at the Stadium.
The Yankees had played plenty of white-knuckle games, but they hadn’t been in anything close to a “must-win” game before Sunday. It could have meant the difference between getting a bye in the first round of the postseason or having to play a Wild Card Series, or earning home-field advantage in the wild-card round.
“It means a lot, especially with how close they are in the standings,” Jose Caballero said. “We know it could be down to a tiebreaker at the end — for the division or for the [top] wild card — so it's huge to have the advantage on those.”
The Yankees (78-59), who moved 19 games over .500 for the first time this season, stayed within 4½ games of AL East-leading Tampa Bay and pushed their lead over the Red Sox in the race for the top wild card to four games.
They have to feel good about having sewn up the tiebreaker against one of their division rivals because they learned the hard way last season what can happen if you don’t. The Blue Jays and Yankees tied for the best record in the American League in 2025, but en route to reaching Game 7 of the World Series, Toronto earned the tiebreaker for the division title and got a bye while the Yankees had to exhaust their resources in the Wild Card Series against Boston.
“It is good to have the tiebreaker because we saw it last year, how we lost the division [due to] a tiebreaker,” Caballero said.
The Yankees, who hit five home runs — including two by Austin Wells in a four-homer, nine-run eighth inning — got important performances by starting pitcher Will Warren and scuffling trade deadline acquisition Heliot Ramos.
Warren (9-6, 4.23 ERA) has been inconsistent, , but the righthander took a shutout into the eighth in what manager Aaron Boone called “probably his best performance of the year.” After allowing only five baserunners and striking out seven in the first seven innings, he lost the shutout when he gave up a double by Trevor Story and a single by Nick Sogard to start the eighth, but all that did was bring the Red Sox within 7-1.
Ramos entered Sunday with a .119/.257/.203 slash line and one RBI in 20 games since being acquired from San Francisco. He had the big hit, a 416-foot three-run shot to leftfield off lefthander Ranger Suarez for his first home run as a Yankee, to cap a five-run fifth that gave his team a 5-0 lead.
“I thought we were having good at bats against Ranger but just weren't having much to show,” Boone said. “Then finally we were able to break through with some big collective at-bats. Then it just felt like [Ramos’] at-bat was massive.”
“[It’s] knowing that I belong here, knowing that . . . I'm here, and I know I can do it on the big stage,” Ramos said. “I can help this team, and that's all I wanted to show.”
Earlier in the inning, Caballero singled and — in an at-bat that changed the game — Jazz Chisholm Jr. reached base on a fly ball that centerfielder Ceddanne Rafaela was ruled to have trapped. Ali Sanchez dropped a perfect sacrifice bunt toward third to put runners on second and third and, with the infield drawn in, Paul Goldschmidt gave the Yankees a 2-0 lead with a 68.7-mph bouncer up the middle.
In the eighth, Wells (five RBIs in the Yankees' final three at-bats) hit a two-run homer to right off lefthander Jovani Moran and Goldschmidt hit Moran's next pitch over the rightfield fence for his 18th homer. Infielder Andruw Monasterio replaced Moran and — throwing an assortment of blooper pitches that rarely broke 50 mph and wearing a smile through much of his appearance — allowed a sacrifice fly by Trent Grisham, a three-run homer by Caballero and a two-run homer by Wells.
Given the number of innings thrown by relievers as the Yankees won two of the first three in the series, Boone was concerned before first pitch.
“First thing is like ‘hopefully we get through the game’ [because] you have days like that,” he said, “and then you get in a position where it's winning time, and a lot of people did a lot of really good things.”
He added, “There's so many games in the season that feel like ‘I’ve got to get this one’ or that are pivotal. And we’ve been playing in these games for 2 1/2 months that are 2-1 or 1-1 in the eighth inning every day. They all feel [important] . . . So I don't know if it's just as simple as ‘we're going to really win this one because this one’s [key].’ We’ve got to go play well the rest of September.”
Said Caballero, “I think this is what we are capable of, and we all know this in here. It's showing up and showing up at the right time.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
