Yankees Sweep Red Sox, Advance to ALDS Against Rays

NEW YORK — The Yankees sweep Red Sox dream became reality on Wednesday night, as New York routed Boston 9-2 to complete a two-game sweep of the American League Wild Card Series and punch its ticket to the AL Division Series against the top-seeded Tampa Bay Rays.

Cody Bellinger hit a three-run homer during a six-run sixth inning and finished with four RBIs, Max Fried delivered six strong innings, and the Yankees dominated without their injured superstar Aaron Judge — scoring 18 runs on 26 hits across the two games, according to Reuters.

Yankees sweep Red Sox: how Game 2 went down

The Yankees broke open a tight game in the sixth. Luis Garcia Jr. got the scoring started with a solo homer off Sonny Gray in the fourth, and Bellinger chopped an RBI single in the fifth for a 2-0 lead. Then the floodgates opened in the sixth: the Yankees sent 10 batters to the plate against Garrett Crochet and Garrett Whitlock, with rookie Spencer Jones hustling home on a wild-pitch strikeout and George Lombard Jr. driving in a run before Bellinger delivered the knockout blow.

After the Red Sox intentionally walked red-hot Ben Rice to load the bases, Bellinger crushed a 1-0 changeup from Whitlock into the right-center-field seats for a three-run homer that made it 8-1. The blast turned Yankee Stadium into a celebration and effectively ended the series.

Max Fried follows Schlittler’s gem

Max Fried (1-0) followed Cam Schlittler’s dominance in the series opener by allowing just one run on three hits over six innings on Wednesday. Fried struck out six and walked one, continuing the Yankees’ rotation mastery — Boston managed only a handful of hits all series and never looked threatening after Game 1’s 9-0 drubbing.

Red Sox starter Sonny Gray, whose season had been a disaster in his first start in months, actually pitched decently before the sixth-inning unraveling. Boston’s bullpen, however, couldn’t hold back the Yankees’ relentless lineup.

Bellinger’s breakout series

Cody Bellinger was the star of the clincher and arguably the series MVP. After a fifth-inning RBI single gave the Yankees the lead, his sixth-inning three-run homer — following an intentional walk to Rice — turned a close game into a coronation. Bellinger finished the night 2-for-4 with four RBIs, capping a postseason in which the Yankees’ trade-deadline acquisitions have paid immediate dividends.

The series numbers tell the story of dominance: 18 runs, 26 hits, and a pitching staff that held Boston to almost nothing. Schlittler’s 10-strikeout gem in Game 1 set the tone, and Fried’s six strong innings in Game 2 finished the job. The Red Sox, swept in the wild-card round by their rivals for the second straight year, head into the winter with hard questions about a rotation that crumbled when it mattered most.

What the Yankees sweep means for the ALDS

The Yankees beat the Red Sox in the wild-card round for the second straight year — and were significantly more prolific than last year, when they needed three games to advance, per Reuters. Now comes the real test: a best-of-five ALDS against the top-seeded Tampa Bay Rays, beginning Saturday in St. Petersburg, Fla. Tampa Bay earned the AL’s top seed with a pitching-and-defense formula that has repeatedly frustrated the Yankees in recent years.

The storylines are compelling. The Yankees did all of this without Aaron Judge, who remains sidelined with a strained right calf. Ben Rice, Cody Bellinger, and the Baby Bombers have carried the offense, and the rotation — Schlittler and Fried — has been airtight.

Elsewhere in the MLB playoffs

The wild-card round produced drama elsewhere too:

• Phillies vs. Braves (tied 1-1): Alec Bohm’s 10th-inning homer forced a winner-take-all Game 3 on Thursday in Atlanta, with the winner advancing to the NLDS against the two-time defending champion Dodgers, per Reuters.
• Padres: San Diego swept the Cubs 2-0 behind Gavin Sheets’ pinch-hit two-run homer in Game 2, advancing to face the top-seeded Brewers, according to Reuters.
• White Sox: Chicago swept the Astros for its first playoff series win since the 2005 World Series — the club’s latest landmark after three consecutive 100-loss seasons, per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The ALDS and NLDS Game 1s are set for Saturday, Oct. 3, marking the start of the league championship push.

What’s next for the Yankees

The question now is whether Judge will be back for the ALDS. His calf strain has kept him out of the wild-card round, but the Yankees’ young core has shown it can win without him — a confidence boost that could matter against a Rays team built on pitching and depth.

New York’s formula is clear: keep getting star turns from unexpected places, keep pitching like this, and the franchise’s first World Series appearance since 2009 suddenly looks within reach.