After Max Fried carried a gem into the seventh inning, hanging on to a one-run lead, Luke Weaver relieved him and quickly flushed it away, resulting in a tense 3-1 loss to the Red Sox in Game 1 of their AL wild-card series in The Bronx.
No matter how good Yankees relievers looked down the stretch, they had inflicted enough pain during the course of the regular season to induce nightmares about what might happen in October.
The Yankees could not wake up from such a night terror on Tuesday, though their bullpen was not the only unit responsible for that.
After Max Fried carried a gem into the seventh inning, hanging on to a one-run lead, Luke Weaver relieved him and quickly flushed it away, resulting in a tense 3-1 loss to the Red Sox in Game 1 of their AL wild-card series in The Bronx.
Weaver had no room for error because Red Sox ace Garrett Crochet was in the midst of a dominant night, throwing 7 ²/₃ innings of one-run ball while striking out 11.
Crochet passed the baton to former Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman, who finished off the eighth before giving up three straight singles on three straight pitches to Paul Goldschmidt, Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger to lead off the ninth.
