Yankees sunk by missed opportunities in Game 1 as Red Sox escape with Wild Card Series lead

NEW YORK -- Missed opportunities. The New York Yankees lost Game 1 of the Wild Card Series to the Boston Red Sox because their bullpen, shaky all year, let a one-run lead slip away, but the loss was bookended by missed opportunities.

In the first inning Tuesday, Paul Goldschmidt and Aaron Judge greeted Garrett Crochet with back-to-back singles. The Yankees led baseball with 113 first-inning home runs during the regular season and set an MLB record with 50 first-inning home runs, and they were positioned to get on the board early, or at least make Crochet work to get his first three outs.

Instead, Cody Bellinger struck out on four pitches and 2024 postseason hero Giancarlo Stanton grounded into an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play on the fifth pitch of his at-bat. An inning that started with so much promise turned into a zero on the scoreboard and only 13 pitches for Crochet. A missed opportunity and big one, for New York.

"We are talking about a stud pitcher," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said about Crochet. "... I still thought we got some good swings off. Thought Rosario had good at-bats against him. Got him on the ground, though. I thought Aaron, the 3-1, he had a 3-1 pitch, looked like a pitch in the middle that he just missed to center.vLook, he's really good. I thought we had some decent at-bats. We weren't able to pressure them enough and put enough traffic against him to put him in real trouble."

Anthony Volpe got to Crochet for a solo homer in the second inning, and that's how you have to beat him: hit the ball out of the park. Stringing together hits and walks is nigh impossible. After the home run, Crochet retired 17 consecutive Yankees; only three of them even got the ball out of the infield. He was dominant.

New York's bullpen turned the 1-0 lead into a 3-1 deficit in the late innings and the offense had no answer for Crochet, who pitched into the eighth. Closer Aroldis Chapman, who's had an out-of-this-world season at age 37, recorded the final out of the eighth as Red Sox manager Alex Cora went for the kill with a four-out save.

Like the first inning, the Yankees had an opportunity -- a great opportunity -- in the ninth. Goldschmidt, Judge, and Bellinger greeted Chapman with back-to-back singles. The Yankees loaded the bases with no outs in the span of five pitches. Down two runs, they were set up to tie the game even without getting another hit.

The hit(s) and the runs never came. Chapman recovered to strike out Stanton on a dastardly splitter and then got Jazz Chisholm Jr. to fly out to shallow right, shallow enough that Goldschmidt had to hold at third. He finished the job by striking out Trent Grisham on a 101.2 mph fastball that nearly hit him. An escape job for the ages, it was.

"I thought we had really good at-bats with him," Boone said about facing Chapman. "(José) Caballero at-bat the inning before was really good. Goldy getting us going, Judgie smoking a ball, Belli doing his thing. I thought G didn't get any results tonight, but I thought he had a lot of good swings, a lot of just misses. They got us tonight."

Missed opportunities in the first and ninth innings can be chalked up to Crochet and Chapman being great, great pitchers, for sure, though the ninth inning can also be blamed on roster construction. Against Chapman, the Yankees did not have any righties to pinch-hit for Chisholm or Grisham, lefties who had a hard time with lefties in 2025.

In fact, Chisholm entered the game as a defensive replacement in the eighth inning, after Amed Rosario made the final out of the seventh. Rosario was in the lineup because he is 6 for 9 with a homer in his career against Crochet, including 5 for 8 with the home run this season. He's a platoon guy who was in the lineup to hit lefties.

Boone pulled Rosario for defense rather than wait to strategically use Chisholm as a pinch-hitter against a righty reliever. Sure enough, Chisholm in Rosario's lineup spot came up in a massive situation in the ninth. The Yankees could have had Rosario, their go-to platoon righty at the plate. Instead was a lefty against Chapman.

The Yankees did not have many opportunities in Game 1 because you don't get many opportunities against Crochet and Chapman. The opportunities they did have were not converted into runs, at least in part because the club's roster construction puts them at a disadvantage against lefty heavy pitching staffs like Boston's.

The margins are too small in October and they're even smaller against pitchers like Crochet and Chapman. The Yankees had a chance to deliver a punch in the first inning and a chance to come back in the ninth, and scored zero runs. The bullpen took the loss, but the Yankees scored one run in Game 1. That's the game right there. Missed opportunities.