NEW YORK — Going into the playoffs without a couple of their best young players and two starters, the depth-depleted Boston Red Sox turned to a rookie with four games of major league experience to pitch on the road in a winner-take-all situation.
Connelly Early handled the stage plenty well until his defense let him down and the New York Yankees’ bats wore him down, eliminating Boston by winning Game 3 of the AL Wild Card Series 4-0 on Thursday night. The Red Sox became the first team to lose in the best-of-three round after winning Game 1 since the expanded format came into existence in 2022.
“This is brutal,” third baseman and veteran leader Alex Bregman said. “We just didn’t get the job done.”
Not having right-handers Lucas Giolito and Tanner Houck available and losing Marcelo Mayer and Roman Anthony to season-ending injuries put the Red Sox at a disadvantage on the road at Yankee Stadium. Still, Boston got a gem from Garrett Crochet and a clutch hit by Masataka Yoshida to win the opener and had chances to sweep, even after manager Alex Cora pulled Game 2 starter Brayan Bello after 2½ innings to turn to the bullpen, which eventually backfired.
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Early went further, getting through three without allowing a run before one of the culprits from the regular season came back to haunt Boston in the fourth.
Center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela, right fielder Wilyer Abreu and second baseman Romy Gonzalez converged on a fly ball by leadoff hitter Cody Bellinger and let it fall between them for a double. Down 2-0 after a walk and three singles, Nathaniel Lowe couldn’t field a grounder to first, and two more runs scored to turn it into a 4-0 deficit.
“We didn’t play defense,” Cora said. “The pop-up drops, it’s a double, and then there’s a walk. They didn’t hit the ball hard, but they found holes and it just happened fast.”
Lowe, who joined in August after being cut by Washington, shouldered the blame for not being able to make a play that could have stemmed the tide.
“I thought I could get to the short hop,” Lowe said. “I didn’t. The between hop ate me up, and obviously runs cashed in, and we couldn’t make up for it.”
The Red Sox led the majors with 116 errors, six more than NL-worst Colorado and 17 more than any other AL team. The Yankees were charged with one for dropping a pop fly in foul territory, but third baseman Ryan McMahon’s catch while falling into the visiting dugout and other sound defensive plays behind rolling rookie Cam Schlittler ensured Boston never had much chance to get back into the game.
“To come this far and lose in the first round, it hurts,” Lowe said.
Just by returning to the playoffs for the first time four years, the Red Sox exceeded expectations, especially following the mid-June trade of Rafael Devers to San Francisco. They were 37-36 at the time and won 52 of 89 games down the stretch to qualify.
“I’m proud of the fight in the room, proud of the guys for fighting all year,” Bregman said when asked his message for the rest of the clubhouse. “Remember this feeling because it sucks. You don’t want to feel it.”
That included seasonlong domination of their biggest rival, winning 10 of 14 games against the Yankees, whom they had also turned the historical tables on in October since just after the turn of the century. Boston had beaten New York in eight of 10 playoff games dating to overcoming a 3-0 AL Championship Series deficit in 2004 on the way to winning the franchise’s first World Series since 1918.
“Compared to other years, we took a step forward,” Cora said. “We didn’t finish the way we wanted.”
