Trevor Story the hero, Red Sox/Yankees showdown underwhelms

Gabrielle Starr, Boston Herald on Jun 7, 2025

Published in Baseball

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NEW YORK – It’s been a long time since the Boston Red Sox had an ace left-hander to bring to a southpaw showdown with the New York Yankees.

The Red Sox won 10-7, but it wasn’t much of a showdown.

Garrett Crochet yielded a season-high five earned runs on six hits in six topsy-turvy innings. He issued one walk, struck out nine and was charged with a balk. Throwing 97 pitches, 67 for strikes, he induced 15 swings-and-misses, issued one walk, was charged with a balk and struck out nine, including captain Aaron Judge thrice.

Crochet has now struck out 32 batters over his last three starts; according to MLB’s Sarah Langs, he’s the first Red Sox pitcher to strike out at least 30 batters over a three-game span since Chris Sale and Eduardo Rodriguez in ‘19, and the club’s youngest pitcher to do so since Jon Lester in 2009.

It began well enough for Crochet, who needed 10 pitches to get through a 1-2-3 first, which he bookended with a pair of strikeouts to leadoff man Paul Goldschmidt and Aaron Judge. The bottom of the third went the same way.

But pitching with a one-run lead – thanks to Kristian Campbell’s first RBI since May 26 – in the bottom of the second, Crochet got knotted up. He gave up a leadoff single to Cody Bellinger, who stole second after Jasson Domínguez struck out looking, and third while DJ LeMahieu worked a walk. Austin Wells’ 10th home run of the year went just far enough, 343 feet to the short porch for a 3-1 Yankees lead.

It was the only lead the Yankees would get.

Ryan Yarbrough had triumphed in his three outings against the Red Sox last season, but those were relief appearances with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays.

Starts were another story. Yarbrough entered Saturday with a career 7.68 ERA over nine starts against the Red Sox, with 37 earned runs on 56 hits and just 27 strikeouts over 43 1/3 innings. All of said games were with another divisional rival, the Tampa Bay Rays, between 2018-21. Yarbrough’s last start against Boston was Sept. 6, 2021, a seven-run drubbing in which he lasted just two innings.

A very different cadre of Boston batters stepped up to the plate four seasons later, but the end result was similarly productive: they tormented Yarbrough with eight earned runs on nine hits, including Romy Gonzalez’s first homer of the season, in just four innings. He issued two walks, hit a batter and only struck out three.

For just the 28th time in this season, the Red Sox scored first. They jumped out to an early 1-0 advantage in the second, and reclaimed the lead with a five-run top of the third in which Yarbrough faced the entire lineup and forced relievers to begin warming in the Yankees bullpen.

The second time his teammates handed him a lead, Crochet hung on, even as the lower-two thirds of the Yankees lineup hit him hard again in the fourth.

Unfortunately for the Red Sox, Yarbrough’s silver-platter start was over after the fourth and the Yankees bullpen wasn’t nearly as generous. Yerry De los Santos yielded one hit and two walks, but kept Boston from adding on in his three innings of work, and Mark Leiter Jr. pitched a scoreless eighth.

Those wasted opportunities proved costly in the bottom of the eighth when Justin Wilson,became the latest Red Sox reliever to scuffle. After allowing just one earned run over 15 appearances dating back to April 26, Wilson gave up two earned runs .

That Ceddanne Rafaela threw home instead of to the cutoff man – for the second time this week – when Ben Rice singled to center to drive in both runs, didn’t help matters. Such defensive decisions don’t register as errors, but they still hurt the Red Sox in crucial moments. (The Red Sox also lead MLB in errors.)

Boston’s double-digit scoring night was due in large part to two of the club’s coldest hitters: Campbell went 2 for 3 with a pair of runs batted in, and Trevor Story, who twice delivered when he came up with the bases loaded. In the third, Story’s fifth double of the year cleared the bases and retook the lead for the Red Sox. After the Yankees pulled within a run in the eighth, Story’s two-run single gave Boston much-needed breathing room.

In the end, Aroldis Chapman, who spent seven seasons in pinstripes, closed out the win for the other side.

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