After wrapping up a series against the Royals on Wednesday, it’s time for the Yankees to welcome another foe to the Bronx for an important series. Starting tonight, the Yankees are set to take on the Red Sox over four games.
For one, this series is meaningful in the way any Yankees-Red Sox matchup is. This is the last time the two rivals will meet in the regular season this year, with Boston holding a 5-4 edge.
Besides that, it’s an important one for both teams in their various playoff races. For the Yankees, they would love to bank some wins to be able to take some sort of cushion over the Orioles going into next week’s west coast road trip. As for Boston, they’re still in the playoff hunt, but they’re running out of time, coming into this series a couple games back of the last Wild Card-holding Twins. They’ve been a bit iffy of late, having recently gone on a five-game losing streak. Both teams would really love to come out of this set with a series win, for reasons that go beyond any rivalry stakes.
Before the action gets underway tonight, let’s take a look at the expected pitching matchups for the next few days.
Thursday: Nestor Cortes vs. Cooper Criswell (7:15 pm ET)
After going to the bullpen and piggybacking off Clarke Schmidt in his last appearance, Cortes is back in the rotation, at least for this go-round. He was strong out of the bullpen in that appearance, although he wasn’t pleased about that role. If he wants a starting role going forward and in the playoffs, he needs a good outing in this game, considering the up-and-down nature of his season led him to briefly be the odd man out.
Criswell has generally been above average in his role as a swingman for the Red Sox this year. He’s had one appearance in each role against the Yankees so far this season, allowing two runs in five combined innings. That being said, since the start of August, Criswell has a 4.70 ERA and a 5.05 FIP.
Friday: Clarke Schmidt vs. TBD (7:05 pm ET)
Schmidt made his return to the mound after injury against the Cubs on Sunday, and was generally good. He threw 4.2 scoreless innings, allowing two hits and a walk, retiring nine of 10 batters in a row at one point. While the Yankees will obviously want to win this game, a large part of it will also be seeing how back Schmidt truly is.
The Red Sox haven’t confirmed a starter for Friday, but it will most likely be Tanner Houck. Boston’s ace skipped a start recently, with the Red Sox saying that he “didn’t recover well enough” after his last appearance. If he’s not fully ready to go that night, the next option seems to be Richard Fitts, who was one of the prospects traded for Alex Verdugo this past winter.
Saturday: Gerrit Cole vs. Brayan Bello (1:05 pm ET)
If you take out the two Mets’ starts, Cole has looked pretty much like Cy Young Gerrit Cole this season. Since the start of August, he has a 1.58 ERA and a 2.45 FIP, limiting hitters to a .558 OPS. One of the only other iffy starts came against Boston back in July. He gave up four runs in 4.1 innings that day, but did strike out eight.
On the whole, Bello’s numbers grade out as a little below average on the year. That being said, both this year and for his career, he’s been good against the Yankees. In 40.2 career innings against the Bombers, he has a 2.66 ERA.
Sunday: Carlos Rodón vs. Kutter Crawford (1:35 pm ET)
Since his June/July swoon, Rodón has been solid, with some ups and downs in there. Of late, it’s been more ups than downs, as he totaled 28 strikeouts over his last three games. That being said, it was a start against Boston back on June 15th that really started his struggles, as he gave up five runs in five innings that day, having entered that day with a sub-3.00 ERA.
Crawford has made three starts against the Yankees this season. Over the first two, he held them to three runs in 13 innings, including seven shutout on July 7th. However, the Yankees then faced him on July 27th, and showed some good signs, knocking him out after five runs and 4.2 innings. Now, we’ll see if whatever adjustments they seemingly made in that game carry over.
