The Red Sox walked off against the dynamic Houston Astros to avoid the sweep to continue to build on this already historic season. Red Sox first baseman, Mitch Moreland, blooped a fastball to the opposite field that narrowly bounced in front of Astros left fielder Marwin Gonzalez, scoring pinch-runner Tzu-Wei Lin from second to seal the victory. While the Red Sox winning was important to avoid the sweep, the victory was even more important for magic numbers- actually, number.
The Red Sox moved the magic number to clinch the AL East crown to one ahead of the New York Yankees, meaning any combination of Red Sox win and Yankees loss that equals one mathematically would eliminate the Yankees from winning the AL East. Tuesday night, in a victory against the Toronto Blue Jays, the Red Sox secured their third straight AL East division title. For baseball, this is saddening news.
Before the season started, the New York Yankees added reigning NL MVP Giancarlo Stanton to an already formidable lineup, fresh off an ALCS appearance; meanwhile, the Sox added perennial slugger J.D. Martinez to their playoff-caliber squad.
The Stanton signing was more of an opportunistic move whereas the Martinez move was definitely need based. The Miami Marlins traded Stanton for all-star second baseman Starlin Castro and a couple of minor league players—ergo, they essentially traded the MVP for next to nothing, so Yankees GM, Brian Cashman, would have been foolish not to pursue that deal. The Yankees outfield now featured all-star and veteran leader Brett Gardner, MVP runner-up and Rookie of the Year, Aaron Judge, and reigning MVP Giancarlo Stanton. Needless to say, the Yankees fans’ expectations were not short of sky high. On the other side, Martinez, who hit 40+ home runs last season with Detroit and Arizona, joined a Red Sox team that was near the bottom of the league in total team home runs a season ago—addressing a major deficit. So, the Red Sox added a top 5 hitter to their lineup a year removed from making the ALDS. I’m sure you know where I’m going with this—the Red Sox fans, too, had sky high expectations at the season’s start.
The goal for both of these squads was to avoid the dreaded and controversial one game wild card playoff. Each division winner (East, Central, West) gets an automatic bid into the two ALDS series, the first overall seed (team with the best record) faces the winner of that one game playoff at home. So, if the season ended right now, Boston, Cleveland and Houston would get automatic bids. Cleveland would face Houston in a best-of-5 and Boston would face the winner of the Yankees and A’s in their best-of-5. The reason the one game playoff is so controversial is the fact that division winners get automatic bids. The Indians’ record is 81 wins and 62 losses, and they’re currently 15 games better than the second-place team in their division. Ifthe Yankees played in the Indians’ division, the Yankees would be eight games better than them with a record of 89 wins and 54 losses. Meaning, the Indians get an automatic bid into the best-of-5 while the team with a far better record has to settle for a do-or-die wild card game after a 162-game season.
This brings us back to the present. The Red Sox sealed the fate of the 2018 AL East division race, sending the Yankees to the wild card if all stays consistent for the remainder of the regular season. Baseball fans were hoping for a more competitive finish between the arch rivals, especially since the Yankees and Sox finish their regular seasons playing at Fenway against each other in a three-game series. If the Yankees had been able to claw back into the race and be within 3 games of the Red Sox before that series, TV ratings would’ve exploded.
All the Yankees have to do is win the wild card game and baseball fans will get their wish when the Yankees play the Red Sox in October.