September 30, 2018: Red Sox beat Yankees for franchise-record 108th win

Winning the most games during the regular season by no means guarantees a team a World Series championship. As of 2023, neither of the two teams tied for the most regular-season wins in major-league history – 116 wins – had done so. The 1906 Chicago Cubs were 116-36 (.763) over a 154-game schedule but lost the World Series to the Chicago White Sox. The 2001 Seattle Mariners went 116-46 (.716) in a 162-game slate before losing the American League Championship Series to the New York Yankees. Two 111-win clubs, the 1954 Cleveland Indians (111-43) and 2022 Los Angeles Dodgers (111-51), have also fallen short of winning it all.1

Of course, many other teams with top regular seasons have gone on to championships. The 1998 Yankees, whose 114 wins rank third in major-league history, swept the World Series from the San Diego Padres. The 1927 Yankees and 1909 Pittsburgh Pirates, baseball’s only 110-win teams, also won the World Series.

Through 2023, the 2018 Boston Red Sox are one of only 13 major-league teams with as many as 108 regular-season wins. They won exactly two-thirds of their games, 108-54, which gave them the best record in the major leagues in 2018 and the most victories of any Red Sox team ever. They went all the way in October, winning 11 more games for the ninth World Series championship in franchise history.

The 2018 team lost its first game, a 6-4 loss at Tampa Bay. Then they won their next nine. The Yankees beat them, in Boston, on April 11, but the Red Sox then reeled off eight more wins. A 90 percent winning percentage wasn’t going to last; they lost three in a row. They were 21-7 by the end of April. In May, the team “slumped” to a .621 winning percentage (18-11). They held more or less steady, with 17-10 in June and then had a very strong 19-6 July. They won two-thirds of their games in August (18-9) but were not finding wins as easy to come by in September. Heading into this game on the last day of the month – the last game of the 162 – they were 15-10.

There had been a modest four-game winning streak in May, and three of them in June. There was a season-best 10-game winning streak in early July and a four-game streak near the end. August began with a six-game winning streak and then a five, separated by just one loss. There was one four-game win streak in September.

The Red Sox’ longest losing streaks were three games – the one in April, two in August, and then the three games leading up to this one in September, all at Fenway Park, losing the second game of two to the Orioles on September 26, then games to the Yankees on September 28 and 29.

It’s not as though they were in any danger of losing the AL East; the Red Sox came into the September 30 game with a seven-game lead over the Yankees. The Red Sox and Yankees were 9-9 in head-to-head play, this game to determine which prevailed.

Red Sox manager Alex Cora selected 2016 AL Cy Young Award winner Rick Porcello (17-7) to start. He wanted Porcello to throw a couple of innings to stay in shape for the AL Division Series.2 The Yankees’ Aaron Boone started Luis Cessa (1-3).3

Porcello retired the three Yankees he faced in the top of the first. Cessa gave up singles to the first three batters he faced – Mookie Betts, Brock Holt, and J.D. Martinez.4 One run scored due to right fielder Aaron Judge’s fumble trying to get a handle on Holt’s hit.

Xander Bogaerts fouled out to first baseman Luke Voit, but that was the only out Cessa recorded. Boston first baseman Mitch Moreland doubled high off the wall in left, driving in Holt. Third baseman Eduardo Nuñez reached on an infield squibber as Cessa dropped the feed at first; Martinez scored. David Robertson was summoned to replace Cessa. Second baseman Ian Kinsler grounded out, short to second, as the fourth run scored. Catcher Sandy Leon struck out. It was 4-0, Red Sox – enough, as it turned out, to win the game.

Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez drew a two-out walk in the second, but he was the only baserunner. Jonathan Loaisiga replaced Robertson in the bottom of the inning. After Brett Gardner dropped his foul ball hit down the left-field line, Jackie Bradley Jr. lifted a solid single to right. With one out, Holt doubled him home, the ball hitting off the scoreboard in left. With two out, Bogaerts hit a two-run homer into the bleachers in straightaway deep center, giving him 103 RBIs for the season. 7-0, Red Sox.

Cora used seven more pitchers in the game.5 Each worked one inning. They were, in order, Joe Kelly, Bobby Poyner, Eduardo Rodriguez, Matt Barnes, Ryan Brasier, Drew Pomeranz, and Craig Kimbrel. The Yankees used seven pitchers in all. Loaisiga worked the third and fourth.

The Yankees got on the scoreboard in the fourth against Poyner. DH Miguel Andujar hit a one-out double, his 47th of the season, off the wall in left.6 Voit, first-pitch swinging, homered to the center-field batter’s eye, the record 267th home run of the year for New York. The score was 7-2.

In the bottom of the fourth, the Red Sox responded with a three-run homer from J.D. Martinez off Justus Sheffield, after one-out walks to Tzu-Wei Lin (who had taken over for Betts in center field) and Holt.7 Eduardo Rodriguez caught the homer while warming up in the Red Sox bullpen. It was Martinez’s 43rd homer of the season, the most ever for a Red Sox player in his first year with the club.8

The Red Sox were ahead 10-2, and there were a number of defensive changes by both teams, each giving the usual starting players a bit of rest. Voit singled off Barnes in the sixth. Ryan Brasier walked third baseman Neil Walker in the seventh. No other Yankees reached base. Red Sox batters drew three walks and hit two doubles, but they were scattered and there were no more runs scored.

Kimbrel stuck out the three Yankees he faced in the top of the ninth and the 10-2 game was over. The Red Sox were 108-54; they had won exactly two-thirds of their games. The loss went to Cessa, of course. The win went to E-Rod, who just happened to be the pitcher in the fifth when the game became official. He had induced a foul pop fly to first base and struck out two. That brought him to 13-5 for 2018.

The New York Daily News termed it “a lifeless and meaningless 10-2 loss.”9 The Yankees themselves had won 100 games for the 20th time in their history.

Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe wrote that the Red Sox “had long ago clinched all there was to be clinched. But laying a 10-2 beating on their rivals was satisfying nonetheless after a series of unimpressive games in recent days. It surely eased some worried minds among their fans, too.”10

There was a wild-card game to determine who would face the Red Sox in the ALDS.11 On October 3, the Yankees beat the Oakland A’s, in New York, 7-2. It was thus the Yankees who faced Boston.

The Red Sox won the ALDS opener on October 5 but lost the next day. A 16-1 win in Game Three at Yankee Stadium, highlighted by Holt’s cycle, put Boston ahead in the series, and the Red Sox closed out the Yankees a day later.

Matched against the reigning World Series champion Houston Astros in the ALCS, the Red Sox lost Game One in Boston, 7-2. Four straight wins, by scores of 7-5, 8-2, 8-6, and 4-1, then advanced the Red Sox to the World Series for the 13th time in franchise history.

The Los Angeles Dodgers had won the National League pennant, dispatching the Atlanta Braves in a four-game NLDS, then beating the Milwaukee Brewers in a hard-fought seven-game NLCS.

After four days off, the Red Sox took on the Dodgers in the World Series. Nuñez’s three-run pinch-hit homer broke open a close game in Boston’s 8-4 win at Fenway Park in Game One, and four Red Sox pitchers combined on a three-hitter for a 4-2 win in Game Two. The series moved to Dodger Stadium, where Los Angeles outlasted Boston in a record-setting 18-inning Game Three.

The Red Sox then rallied from a four-run deficit to win Game Four, 9-6. With a 5-1 win in Game Five on October 28, Boston capped its best-ever regular season by winning its fourth World Series championship in 15 years, after enduring an 86-year drought after the 1918 title, 100 years before this one.

The previous franchise record was 105 wins, in 1912. In 1915, they won 101 and in 1946 they won 104.

The 2018 Red Sox were the only team in the majors not to have lost four in a row all season long. The only other two teams to have accomplished that were the 1903 and 2013 teams.12 Both of those teams also won the World Series.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Kevin Larkin and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and YouTube.com.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS201809300.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2018/B09300BOS2018.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bbmWaMBTPE

Photo credit: J.D. Martinez, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 The Indians were swept in the World Series by the San Francisco Giants. The Dodgers lost the National League Championship Series to the eventual World Series champion Atlanta Braves.

2 Porcello was in his third year with the Red Sox. He had won the Cy Young Award in 2016 with a record of 22-4 and a 3.15 earned-run average. He’d had a disappointing 2017 season, losing a majors-leading 17 games (11-17, 4.65).

3 Cessa’s ERA was 4.67, in his third partial year with the Yankees. He had spent a good portion of the season in Triple A, but appeared in 15 Yankees games. This was his fifth start.

4 Betts scored 129 runs, leading the majors. His .346 batting average also led both leagues, as did his .640 slugging percentage. Betts was named the 2018 AL Most Valuable Player.

5 In the next day’s Globe, the title of columnist Dan Shaughnessy’s piece was “Our Rookie of the Year Vote Goes to Cora.” See Boston Globe, October 1, 2018: D1.

6 Andujar had already broken Joe DiMaggio’s franchise record for doubles as a rookie, set in 1936. He finished second in the AL Rookie of the Year voting to Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels.

7 The Martinez home run gave him 130 RBIs, which led the major leagues in 2018.

8 Dick Stuart had hit 42 in 1963.

9 Kristie Ackert, “It’s Gotta Happ-en,” New York Daily News, October 1, 2018: CS40. The “Happ”
reference was to expected starting pitcher J.A. Happ in the winner-take-all wild-card game against Oakland. Instead, the start went to Luis Severino, with Dellin Betances getting the win.

10 Peter Abraham, “Red Sox Roll in Regular-Season Finale, on to the Postseason,” Boston Globe, October 1, 2018: D1.

11 Nick Cafardo wrote a column in the Globe headlined “Admit It, You Want N.Y.” as to whom fans should want as their opponent in the Division Series. See Boston Globe, October 1, 2018: D2.

12 There were seven seasons in which they had lost 100 or more: 1906, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1930, 1932 (a record 111 losses), and 1965.