October 8, 2018: Red Sox clobber Yankees 16-1 and move to brink of winning ALDS

Brock Holt admits he was swinging to hit a home run. And why not? It was the top of the ninth inning and the Red Sox already had a 14-1 lead in Game Three of the American League Division Series. Yankees manager Aaron Boone had conceded the game, inserting a position player – backup catcher Austin Romine – to try to get the last three outs. After grounding out against starter Luis Severino his first time up, Holt already had a single, a triple, and a double – in that order. He was going for the cycle.

“I knew I needed a home run. I saw Romine was on the mound. So you get a little antsy when a position player is on the mound. I told everyone, ‘Get me up. I need a home run for a cycle.’ I was going to try to hit a home run, but I figured I’d ground out to first, be out in front of something.

“But I scooted up in the box a little bit, and I was going to be swinging at anything and try to hook anything. Obviously, you don’t expect to hit a home run, but I was trying to. I was trying to hit a home run. That’s probably the first time I’ve ever tried to do that.”

He hit it. He swung at the first pitch and slammed it into the Yankee Stadium seats down the right-field line.

“I was just trying to get it over the plate,” Romine said. “I haven’t pitched since high school.”

Brock Holt had hit for the first cycle ever hit in major-league postseason baseball. And it extended the Red Sox lead to 16-1, tying the record for the second-largest winning margin in a postseason game. It was the biggest margin by which any road team had won a playoff game.

Among the six Yankees pitchers, the pair of runs Romine gave up was no worse than three of the regulars – Severino (six runs in three innings), Lance Lynn (three runs in a third of an inning), and Stephen Tarpley (three runs in one inning). All six New York pitchers surrendered one or more runs. Everyone in the Red Sox starting lineup had at least one base hit, and six of them had two or more. Every one of those batters either drove in or scored a run.

And in a weird twist to the game, which didn’t affect the game significantly, first-base umpire Angel Hernandez had four calls challenged. Three of the four calls were overturned in replay.

The mood in Boston going into the game was morose. The Red Sox had won 108 games in the regular season and the Yankees finished in second place, eight games behind, with 100 wins. The Red Sox had won 10 of the 19 matchups since April. And they’d won Game One of the ALDS, but just barely; after establishing a 5-0 lead, they’d seen a leaky bullpen take things down to the wire and won, 5-4. In Game Two, David Price dropped to 0-9 as a starter in postseason play, as the Yankees won easily, 6-2, with even the .186-hitting Gary Sanchez coming alive with two home runs and four RBIs. The momentum seemed to have swung in New York’s direction. The feeling around Boston was palpable – summoning up years and years of losing to New York, even though the teams had not met in the postseason since the miraculous 2004 ACLS.

Game Three started off with three runs the Red Sox squeaked off Severino. The Yankees pitcher really didn’t have it, but got through the first inning with three fly balls to Brett Gardner in center field. In the second, the Red Sox scored once after a Rafael Devers single and stolen base; he took third on a groundout and then scored on a weak ball that ticked off Severino’s glove. In the third inning, there were three singles but the two runs the Red Sox added came on a sacrifice fly and an infield groundout.

Boston starter (and one-time Yankee) Nathan Eovaldi had been tough on the Yankees in the regular season. He’d come to the Red Sox from Tampa Bay in late July, had worked three times against the Yankees for Boston, thrown 16 innings, and not given up even one earned run. This night, Eovaldi allowed two singles but no runs in the first three innings. It was the fourth inning when the Red Sox went wild.

Holt started it with a single to center. Christian Vazquez singled and Jackie Bradley Jr. walked. Boone had seen enough of Severino, but reliever Lance Lynn came in and threw four balls in a row to Mookie Betts, forcing in a run. Then Andrew Benintendi broke things open with a bases-clearing triple down into the right-field corner. Later in the same top of the fourth, Steve Pearce singled in Benintendi off reliever Chad Green and Brock Holt came up for the second time in the inning, this time tripling down into the right-field corner, driving in two. It was 10-0. But there was no sense of breathing too easily. The 2018 Yankees had hit a major-league record 267 home runs. They had, after all, won 100 games. And there were still 18 outs to get.

They did get one run, on a groundout, in the bottom of the fourth, but it was only one run. All they ever got was one more base hit off Eovaldi, a single by Aaron Judge in the bottom of the sixth. Eovaldi pitched seven innings, allowing the one run on just five hits. He didn’t walk a batter.

Heath Hembree pitched a hitless eighth and Eduardo Rodriguez pitched a hitless ninth to end the game.

The Red Sox meanwhile added six more runs – one in the seventh, three in the eighth, and two in the top of the ninth. In the seventh, Bradley hit a ground-rule double and J.D. Martinez singled him in. In the eighth, after Devers and Ian Kinsler each led off with singles, Holt hit his double. It wasn’t far from going out, but bounced on the warning track and hopped over the wall in right-center, a ground-rule double driving in Devers. Kinsler scored on a very wild pitch, and Betts singled in Holt.

Holt, knowing he lacked only a home run for the cycle, was due up fourth in the top of the ninth. The first two batters each made out; Romine – a veteran of 296 games, either catching, playing first base, or serving as DH – was looking good on the mound. But Kinsler drew a walk. And the stage was set. Holt, as noted, swung at the first pitch, hit it about six rows deep into the stands in the right-field corner and had his cycle. He had five runs batted in.

Most fans at Yankee Stadium failed to see Holt’s home run. There were 49,657 fans at the game. By the end of eight innings, not many of them remained.

“We have no choice but to flush it,” said Aaron Boone after the game. “It’s one game. As awful as it was for us, we’ve got to turn the page and it’s do or die.”

Those fans who returned the following evening saw the Red Sox put together a 4-0 lead and (in something like a replay of Game One) just barely hold on in the bottom of the ninth to win, 4-3, and advance to the ALCS.

The Red Sox enjoyed their second champagne celebration of the season in Yankee Stadium, having clinched the AL East with their come-from-behind 11-6 win on September 20.

Notes

1. Jason Mastrodonato, “Brock Holt Becomes First Player in History to Hit for Cycle In Playoffs,” Boston Herald, October 9, 2018. Holt added, “I rounded the bases, and seeing everyone going nuts in the dugout was a pretty cool moment for me.”

2. Tyler Kepner, “Aaron Boone’s Inexperience Leaves the Yankees’ Season in Peril,” New York Times, October 9, 2018.

3. Price had two wins in postseason relief. Later in 2018, he won Game Five of the ALCS, which clinched that round of the playoffs for the Red Sox, and then won Game Two and the clinching Game Five of the World Series.

4. For a full look at that postseason, the author recommends his own book: Allan Wood and Bill Nowlin, Don’t Let Us Win Tonight: An Oral History of the 2004 Boston Red Sox’s Impossible Playoff Run (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2014).

5. There were reports just before the game began that Severino had shown up late, thinking the game began at 8:00 P.M. rather than the actual start time of 7:42. Ron Darling said so on TBS. Even YES analyst John Flaherty said on the air, “There is no way you can go on a big league bullpen mound eight minutes before the scheduled first pitch and expect to be ready.” See Ken Davidoff, “Luis Severino Saved Best Heat for Ron Darling’s Warmup Criticism,” New York Post, October 9, 2018. Boone denied it afterward, but it didn’t seem that anyone was buying it.

6. Holt had hit a cycle once before, in regular-season play, on June 16, 2015, against the Atlanta Braves at Fenway Park.

7. Dan Shaughnessy, “In New York, They Shook Off Their Little Town Blues,” Boston Globe, October 9, 2018: C1.

8. When the wins on October 7 and 8, 2018, are added to wins on October 19 and 20, 2004, the Red Sox had run their postseason winning streak in games played at Yankee Stadium to four in a row. The 2018 team later celebrated with champagne in Houston (winning the ALCS on the road) and in Dodger Stadium (winning the World Series on the road).