Good news! Apparently whatever ailment preventing the Red Sox from playing competent baseball at Fenway Park this year is contagious. The New York Yankees may have the best record in the American League, but tonight they put on a total clown shown and gifted a rather amusing victory to Boston with a big, fat bow on it.
The Red Sox of course were still the Red Sox, going 1-12 with runners in scoring position and failing to score a single earned run, but for one night, their shortcomings were dwarfed
by their opponent. If you go by official errors, the Yankees were charged with four, but it you watched the whole thing play out, it felt like they had twice that many.
It started early and often with two mistakes in the first inning: First Austin Wells got nailed on catcher’s interference, and then Cam Schlitter threw a ball into centerfield to set up a second and third situation for the Sox. Even though these two errors didn’t amount to anything, it was a major harbinger of things to come.
In the second inning, the Yankees dropped an infield popup that was generously ruled a hit.
Then later in the same frame, Cam Schlittler hit Carlos Narvaez on an 0-2 pitch.
Again, the Red Sox didn’t score – And they even failed to score again in the third and fourth innings despite another popup dropping in foul territory.
However, in the bottom of the fifth, the flood of mistakes finally caught up and the walls caved in on New York. On another night, this ball becomes an inning ending double play, but with the circus in town, it went through Amed Rosario’s legs to get the Red Sox on the board.
Later in the inning, Jarren Duran recorded a sac fly on a shallow fly ball to left field thanks in part to a very unimpressive throw from Jose Caballero. (To be fair and give the Red Sox some credit, they fully expected a throw like this and challenged his arm.)
Then came the big blow. In an inning that should have been over, the Yankees proved the even against the 2026 Red Sox, if you keep making enormous blunder after enormous blunder, you’re eventually going to pay the piper in this league. Here, it happened in the form of a Caleb Durbin home run down the left field line. It was definitely a Fenway home run, but the Yankees fully earned this one with the way they played all night, and so did Durbin for that matter getting back in the lineup one day after dislocating his pinky.
That homer turned out to be all the runs the Red Sox needed, but the Yankees were not done handing out gifts. Here’s Yerry De los Santos trying to field a bunt in the eighth:
And here he is nearly gifting the Red Sox a run on a wild pitch:
Don’t worry, even though the Sox didn’t cash that check, they were handed the run on the next batter:
And just for good measure, the Sox got yet another insurance run on this failed double play attempt by Anthony Volpe:
On a day exactly on the opposite end of the calendar from Christmas, the Red Sox sure got quite the pile of presents.
Three Studs
Caleb Durbin: In addition to the home run and getting on base three times, he also made this energetic play:
Connelly Early: This is the other main story from the game that kind of got buried in the Yankee calamity. Connelly Early got better as he worked deeper into the outing, survived a shaky first inning, and his fastball was touching 95mph. Great night for him in both the micro and the macro.
Garrett Whitlock: Nice bounce back outing after some shakiness in Colorado. He put up an easy, stress free zero in the top of the eighth.
Three Duds
Marcelo Mayer: 0-4 with two strike outs and a pop up with the bases loaded and nobody out in the bottom of the eighth inning. He looked awful at the dish, and if he had a halfway decent night with the bat, the Red Sox probably score ten runs given all the ducks he left on the pond.
Greg Weissert: Nearly set the game on fire in the seventh inning. Needed Danny Coulombe to get Ben Rice to clean up his jam.
Earthquakes: On a normal night, the third dud would go to either Wilyer Abreu or Willson Contreras, who went a combined 0-8 with three strikeouts from the three and four spots in the lineup. However, given what’s happening in their home country right now, they get a total pass for this one.
Play of the game:
Pick whatever Yankee error was your favorite. Their incompetency powered the Red Sox win with Boston failing to score a single earned run all night. Let’s just hope the Yankees saved some errors for the rest of the series.
