Red Sox vs Yankees Preview – Picks, Predictions and Odds (9/24)

Red Sox vs Yankees Betting Preview

WagerTalk handicapper Tony Finn offers his betting preview of Friday night’s American League East showdown between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. The Red Sox enter tonight’s game with a two-game lead over the Yankees in the AL Wild Card race. New York is one game clear of the Blue Jays for the final playoff spot.

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Boston Red Sox vs New York Yankees Game Notes

• Boston Red Sox +105
• New York Yankees -115
• Total: 9 runs (Under -115 / Over -105)
• Game Time: 7:10pm ET
• Gerrit Cole (NYY) vs Nathan Eovaldi (BOS)

Names and memories remind us of times and spaces branded by royalty and special events. Sports have a long history of making an impression on us, leaving lasting beliefs that had created an account when stories were shared more mouth to mouth than written. The magical on-field performance for one may well be just another home run for another. As a result, unknowingly, sports lore is created and almost always at the most unexpected moment in time.

All of us have shared “Where were you when…” moments. But, if you are one of the unfortunates who stopped and reread the previous sentence to consider my intended coverage of “All,” then it’s pretty likely your essence isn’t experienced that you have or still live in a world that is decorated by vanilla beans.

There may be real flesh, and bone entities unaware of nor understand shared passion born by sport and the lore berthed at that moment? On-field performances are not the end-all to the creation of one’s precious sports blips. Moments frozen in time for some can be as simple as shared wins and losses.

The proliferation of amateur and professional sports teams over the last century has impacted lives on hundreds of different levels. Even color choices by said sports franchises have had surprising influences on individuals and groups.

So much so that individuals have permanently embedded those influences, be it color and logo, into the skin of different body parts as a demarcation of their passion. By no means am I stretching the correctness of these living moments in our world. The connection and, yes, the true love one can feel for things authored by the inanimate is inescapable.

Tonight we have the good fortune of a meeting that has all the DNA of being unique. Suppose you were unaware that the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox begin a three-game weekend set tonight at Fenway. In that case, you are likely blind to the hundreds of meaningful front-page achievements and calamities that can and likely will be spun from tonight’s competitive engagement.

The highest-paid player, subjectively the most critical piece to the Yankees’ future successes, and failures, takes the Fenway mound tonight to build on his New York career and, ultimately, his legacy with the organization. The same can be said for the starting pitcher for host Boston. Southpaw Chris Sale is considered the ace of the Red Sox staff. Still, it’s genuinely Nathan Eovaldi that’s the right player to wear a Kryptonian Skinsuit dress for what figures a volatile Friday night New England promenade.

For clarity, I am not suggesting that tonight’s Fenway function equals Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in American baseball. I am, however, sharing my belief that like Robinson, who would go on to do much more than don a glove and swing a bat for the sport of baseball, this game has the bedrock to wine and dine yet another red-letter in baseball’s history.

The calendar reads September, but this weekend’s three-game set between the Red Sox and Yankees will have an October feel to it.

With just two games separating the teams as they compete for a bracket slot in the American League wild-card game, the postseason has officially begun, and what better place for it to start than Fenway when the Red Sox of Boston host the Yankees of New York.

It will be an electric Friday night at Fenway with Eovaldi wrapping his fingers around the game ball, anxiously waiting to throw the first pitch from the mound near Kenmore Square. But, unfortunately, the Sox’ enemy is in town with the intent to wield their version of Goliath in ace Gerrit Cole.

Cole is positioning himself for another run at the evasive Cy with his 2020 numbers. The Yankees ace has registered 15 wins in 28 starts that include two complete games. Cole owns a 3.03 ERA, but the truth is he has been much better than that 3.03. The Yankees right-hander has an underlying peripheral that trumps his earned run average, this being his ownership of a 2.76 FIP. In addition, Cole has struck out 231 batters over 169 innings.

Cole has three straight Top-5 finishes in the Cy Young award voting process.

Before entering the final month of the season, September, Cole had eight starts in which he compiled a 2.34 ERA, 2.27 xFIP, and a crazy-sick 80:12 K:BB in 50 innings of work.

Cole is as predictable as any pitcher in baseball. When the Yankee right-hander is running well, he is arguably the most reliable game-to-game arm in baseball.

The Red Sox sits in the AL Wild Card catbird seat. Boston owns a two-game lead on the Yankees for the league’s top wild card slot. The Bronx Bombers have a smallish one-game lead over the Toronto Blue Jays for that final wild wild playoff spot. The Jays are looking over their shoulder and staring at the 2021 season’s most unlikely postseason contender, the Seattle Mariners, who currently reside two tilts out of the second and final wild card chair.

The Oakland A’s are but four games out of being a part of this October’s postseason. However, if they were to make a run and ultimately win that second wild-card spot, they would have completed one of the most unlikely playoff scenarios in the history of Major League Baseball. Seattle would have navigated through a maze of three teams in 10 games, downing the Yankees, Blue Jays, and Mariners.

As important as this game is to the Red Sox and the Fenway faithful, it isn’t equal to what I believe to be a win-or-go-home moment for the Yankees. New York’s second 2021 season rests on the shoulders of Cole and in the strength of his right arm.

The veracious, those dedicated to the end-game sum of tonight’s contest between the Yanks and Sox, Boone vs. Cora, and in the memory of days past, a chess game between Steinbrenner and Henry, this event will do everything but go softly into the night.

Tonight’s Eovaldi vs. Cole is more significant, much broader than Major League Baseball portals or networks have reported or spoken to. I have yet to bite into the poison apple that others have, which beams me into the orbit that Eovaldi is part of the 2021 Cy campaign. Note that the apple I refer to looks quite tasty.

Off the top of your head or shooting from the hip who was the last Cy winner that owned a 3.58 ERA at season’s end? You don’t have to retrace Cy Young’s steps to find that pitcher to be Boston’s very own Rick Porcello.

I am on record staking claim of the ridiculousness of the 2016 Cy Young award. Porcello registered a 22-4 record with a 3.15 ERA in 2016. The same Porcello was not even voted/selected to the Summer-Classic in 2016, the American League All-Star team.

The right-hander recorded a 22-4 record, major league-best 5.91 strikeouts to walk ratio, and 145 ERA+ in 223 innings of work. He was voted Best Pitcher of the Year despite being outpitched by Detroit Tigers ace Justin Verlander. The Talley by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America issued Porcello the pitching hardware over Verlander by a vote of 137 to 132.

Porcello finished first on just eight of the 2016 BWAA ballots. However, the Tigers’ righthander, Verlander, topped 14 of the committee’s Cy ballets.

Verlander registered more innings than Porcello. He bested the Red Sox righty in strikeouts and strikeout rate, JV topped all of baseball in the all-important WHIP category, and Porcello’s ERA was higher than that of Verlander. However, Porcello was not as good as Verlander in nearly every critical pitching metric. For example, Verlander being Porcello’s master, the Detroit Tigers Hall of Fame Verlander led Porcello in categories like “deserved run average” and “wins above replacement.”

Eovaldi is much more deserving than was Porcello. The Red Sox right-hander currently has an AL-leading 2.72 FIP while striking out batters at a rate of 9.7 K/9 and leading the league in limiting both HR (.7 HR/9) and walks (1.7 BB/9).

However convincing or passionate I might read – or appear in this piece about tonight’s game – the sidebar and virtual dialogue surrounding the 2021 Cy Young winner, like the second and final wild card slot on the American League side of the bracket, could well include the unofficial Cy Young, award winner. I am on record that the deserving of the Cy hardware isn’t Eovaldi but rather Cole.

Eovaldi has the reputation of a hard thrower with a four-seam offering that has been labeled everything from gas to “wow” and all things in between. His fastball velocity has been his career calling card, but his 2021 command and the delivery of his secondary pitches have inserted Eovaldi into the Cy conversation.

Opposing lineups are hitting below .200 against his curve (.180) and split-finger (.181). His allowed hard or quality contact in 2021 has been the most favorable of his career.

The Red Sox enter the weekend with nine 2021 regular-season games remaining. After this weekend’s trio of events at historic Fenway, the team closes the campaign with a 3-game set at Camden Yards followed by a season-ending Friday, Saturday, and Sunday series adjacent to the Navy Yard in the nation’s capital versus the Washington Nationals.

Anything but a New York sweep of rival Boston this weekend could well be the death of the Yankees postseason plans. Making difficult closer impossible, New York closes the regular season after leaving Boston in Toronto for a three-game set vs. the Blue Jays. That trio of complex tasks welcomes the American League reigning champions Tampa Bay for a three-game series against the Rays at New Yankee Stadium.

To those who are not planning or preparing to watch tonight’s game on their boob-tube – or experience firsthand the ambiance at Fenway – you have my sincerest regrets.

The fans and players participating in tonight’s small slice of baseball will be forever written about in American history. Those who have skin in tonight’s game will never regret being involved, win or lose.

This Yanks and Sox game has the potential of making or breaking spirits. The event could turn the fortune of one or more of the players. Cole and Eovaldi could one day reference this late September matchup as one of the contests they most remember.

For Eovaldi, this is likely the game that decides whether he will be mentioned in the same sentence with Cy Young … ever.

So once again, let me ask those of you reading, possibly watching, or giving a simple listen to my sports take of the day; how important is it for Cole to be the 2021 Cy Young winner, if only for one night; tonight?

To accurately characterize the importance of this one game, let me call tonight’s matchup three hours, which is equal to nothing less than the Yankees’ other 161 games this season combined.

I am not using mine, yours, or a penny of anyone’s money stepping in front of betting against Cole and the Yankees in this big game at Fenway tonight.

The Finn Factor free pick in tonight’s Friday night Fenway event is a play on Cole and the New York Yankees.

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