Red Sox And Yankees Square Off For Final Series This Season

Red Sox vs. Yankees, 7:15 ET

We've reached that point in the season where teams are finally playing each other for the last time. Baseball is always interesting because with so many games, the season is, and feels, long. Specifically, in football, you play the same team maybe twice. Basketball, typically sees matchups happen no more than four or five times. But, with baseball, some of these teams end up playing each other 12-15 times. That's still less than 10% of their games, but you could give me Red Sox Yankees 25% of the time and I'm not sure I would get tired of it.

At this point in the season, the Red Sox are not quite at the point of "hanging by a thread" but they are growing ever closer to it because they are running out of time to make a move that secures them a playoff spot. Coming into today, they are 74-72, which is a respectable record - especially for a team that was expected to likely have a down year. It seems rather unlikely to me that they will have a shot at anything other than the final Wild Card spot. Right now, they are still four games behind the Minnesota Twins, and the Red Sox would still need to pass the Tigers who are a game ahead of them. With just 16 games remaining, and four here against arguably the best team in the American League, things are starting to get a bit bleak in Beantown. Can they take this opener? That may be up to tonight's starter, Cooper Criswell. For the season, Criswell is 6-4 with a 4.11 ERA and a 1.34 WHIP. He's spent most of the season in the rotation, but has also pitched out of the pen at certain points. This month, he has made two starts and both were good ones. He's accumulated a total of nine innings and allowed just two earned runs. His game log is a bit intriguing because he hasn't seen the sixth inning of a game since July 23rd, and has recorded more than 15 outs just three times in 23 appearances, 17 starts. The Yankees have had decent success against him, going 6-for-20, but have only one extra-base hit off of him.

Yankees pitcher Nestor Cortes busted out an interesting set of cleats on Saturday against the Twins which were made out of denim. (Getty Images)

The Yankees could put a bit of a punctuation mark on this season with crushing Boston's postseason hopes. While that means very little in the grand scheme of things, it will also help them a bit with their own postseason pursuit. They still need to secure the division title. At the moment, they have just a 1.5 game lead over the Orioles. With Baltimore hot on their tails, New York really can't afford to take any games off. Will it be the end of the world if they don't get the AL East? Not really. The team would still make the playoffs via a Wild Card berth, but they wouldn't get a bye and would need to adjust their pitching staff a bit. Speaking of pitching, Nestor Cortes will lead to an interesting decision for the team. I do assume he will get a postseason start, but if I were the Yankees, I'd probably try and make sure it was on the home mound. For the season, he is a 3.19 pitcher at home, but 4.81 on the road. Now, I mention that, but I should also mention this split was even more drastic four starts ago. In three of his past four outings at home, he has allowed 17 earned runs in 13 innings. The other start in that stretch was a three-hit, no run performance, in seven innings against the Guardians. Cortes has taken on Boston twice this season, allowing five earned runs in 10.2 innings, but he did produce a quality start against them last time he faced them in New York.

Neither one of these pitchers are all that impressive. I really liked Cortes for much of this season and was using his splits to my advantage. Him stumbling at home lately has taken away the ability to do that. For this game, I think the Red Sox do have some value at the plus money, and don't think the Yankees should be quite as drastic of favorites. If you consider sprinkling on the moneyline, take the Red Sox at +160. Otherwise, my play in this it to take the over 8.5. I think both offenses are playing well, and we get two pitchers who aren't likely to throw shutouts or low-scoring games. 

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