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An ugly, disgusting night in the Bronx – Yankees lose 16-1 in Game 3

It wasn’t just the weather conditions that were absolutely horrible on a muggy Monday night in the Bronx.  The Yankee Stadium crowd was amped up for Game 3 of the ALDS between the Bombers and the Boston Red Sox, but those deafening cheers were silenced early as the Red Sox put up 10 runs in the first four innings.

The Yankees fought back in the bottom of the 4th with a few runs of their own but the lead was insurmountable by the time they got anything going.  There’s plenty of blame to go around, but we’re better off breaking down the two main culprits of this utter collapse.

Luis Severino proves once again he can’t be trusted come playoff time

Luis Severino is still the ace of this pitching staff.  What he is not is a proven playoff performer.  Although he dug deep last week against the Oakland A’s, he had absolutely no answers for the Boston Red Sox.

Severino barely escaped the first inning without giving up a run, but he wasn’t so lucky the second inning.  Christian Vazquez hit a ground ball that tipped off the glove of Severino and slowly rolled down the infield to give the Red Sox a 1-0 lead.  The scoring opened up in third when J.D. Martinez hit a sac fly to score Mookie Betts and Rafael Devers hit a sac groundout to score Andrew Benintendi.

The fourth inning was one that Severino should not have even come out for.  He had nearly 80 pitches going into the fourth, and gave up back to back singles to Brock Holt and Vazquez.  Severino left the game with the bases loaded and Lance Lynn coming in inexplicably.

Lynn proceeded to give up a three run double to Benintendi, but all the runs were charged to Severino.  His statline was awful;  3 IP, 7 hits, 6 ER, 2 BB, 2 SO.  Chad Green relieved Lynn and gave up three more runs to put the game out of reach, giving up a single to Steve Pearce and then a triple to Brock Holt.

Aaron Boone’s Wild Card mastery may have been a fluke

Aaron Boone was a genius when it came to game management in the Wild Card game against Oakland, but he looked like a court jester on Monday night with the game on the line.  There are a few key mistakes that he made that essentially put the game out of reach for the Yankees;

  • Luis Severino should have never come out for the 4th inning after laboring through three
  • Lance Lynn should have never supplanted Sevy, as he’s not a high leverage bullpen guy
  • Chad Green should have started the 4th inning

All of this culminated in the Red Sox scoring seven runs in the fourth inning, when a well managed game could have kept the Yankees within three or four.  Boone has no one to blame but himself for this faux pa, and if the Yankees wind up losing this series, he deserves to be raked against the coals.

The rest of the game meant absolutely nothing.  The Yankees mustered a run off Didi Gregorius’ sac groundout to score Luke Voit, but by the time the Yankees got things going, the game was well over.  Down 10-1 is a hard score to come back from, and the Yankees looked lifeless in the rest of their at bats.

As for the Red Sox, Nate Eovaldi, former Yankee pitcher, pitched brilliantly in seven innings of work.  He only gave up five hits and one earned run, and dominated the Yankee hitters with his fastball.  Heath Hembree and Eduardo Rodriguez pitched scoreless innings in mop-up duty, and the rout was on.

The Red Sox added six more runs in the later innings off of Jonathan Holder (1 ER), Stephan Tarpley (3 ER), and surprisingly enough Austin Romine (2 ER).  It was so bad that Romine had to come in and pitch the top of the ninth.  To pour salt in the wound, Brock Holt hit for the first postseason cycle in MLB history.  The one good thing is that the rest of the Yankees bullpen is still rested, so in Tuesday’s do or die game Boone better be able to pull all the right strings again.

The Yankees have one more opportunity at home to make things right and tie the series at two.  Being down 2-1 isn’t a death sentence, but it’s a do or die game.  If the Yankees lose to their division rivals on Tuesday night, the dream will die for what looked to be a team on the rise.  It will be an extremely disappointing end to a good season, and most Yankee fans will say it’s a failure.

 

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