Yankees Fan Rich Reacts to New York’s Wild Card Sweep of the Red Sox

Rich is a die-hard Yankees fan, and he has never hidden it on the show. So he will say it plainly: he was thrilled to watch Sonny Gray leave Game 2 after 70 pitches with two outs in the fifth inning.

He also could not believe it was happening.

Gray was dealing, confounding the Yankees, nursing a 1-0 lead. Then, with runners on and a decision to be made, Red Sox manager Chad Tracy came to get him. In came the reliever who had given up a home run to Ben Rice the night before. A base hit followed, and only a Yankees third base coach sending Rice home into the third out kept it from becoming a big inning right there.

It became one soon enough. Willson Contreras homered the next inning, taking a stroll so leisurely that, as Rich put it, "he made Big Papi look like Rickey Henderson," with Max Fried staring a hole through him the whole way. Then Garrett Crochet, who had not pitched since April, came in and threw a pitch so nasty to Spencer Jones that it bounced, and Jones reached first anyway when Contreras fielded it behind the bag. Jones stole second, took third on a throw into center field, and the rout was on.

"I don't think that would have happened if you had let Sonny Gray battle it out in the fifth inning," Rich said. "He's got 18 wins for you." Gray also had a no-hit bid against the Yankees during the regular season in a series that, as the crew remembered it, flipped the entire season and sparked a 32 and 5 run.

"It was just inexcusable," Rich said.

Gray agreed. In a sound bite the show played, he said, "I think I'm the best pitcher in the American League going through the order the third time. I think that's a fact." He added, "I would have liked to live or die with me in that moment," and, "I would have liked to been trusted in that moment."

Rich's reaction: what is he saying that isn't true? Gray had a 2.7 ERA, led the American League in wins and served as the ace all season while Crochet was out. "There literally is no tomorrow." Contreras zipped his lips when asked about it, before making the case that the eye test matters in a 1-0 game where the pitcher is keeping a struggling offense, playing without Roman Anthony, in it. The crew compared it to Blake Snell being pulled in the World Series.

Then Tracy intentionally walked Rice to bring up Cody Bellinger. Bellinger, whose father Clay threw him the ceremonial first pitch, finished with four RBIs, including the blast that ended Boston's season at Yankee Stadium for the second straight year. New York won the two games 9-0 and 9-2, a 16-run margin.

What impressed Rich most was how the Yankees did it. Cam Schlittler and Fried delivered their best back-to-back starts of the year. The bullpen did its job, with the exception of Will Warren, who is still learning a relief role. And the offense finally produced the two words that eluded it all season: productive outs. A Trent Grisham bunt loaded the bases. An Austin Wells flyout and a Ryan McMahon groundout made it 5-1. All of it without Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton carrying the load in this series.

"Look out," Rich said. "It's for real, is the way I feel about the Yankees right now, in a way that I did not in August or July or June and parts of September." With Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon lined up against the Rays, he expects a tough series.

He is less thrilled with the schedule: games on Saturday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. "A five-game series taking eight days is not baseball," Rich said, especially after jamming the wild card round in so fast.

Rich also had a confession about Aaron Boone, whose managing has drawn plenty of Yankees fan frustration over the years. He will take Boone's call to bring in Nestor Cortes instead of Tim Hill in Game 1 of that World Series to his grave. But this week, "Chad Tracy has Aaron Boone looking like Casey Stengel."

As for the Red Sox: a great regular season, Rich said, and a postseason that was an utter, complete disaster. And one lingering mystery from Gray's start, the rash-like mark on the back of his neck that was gone by the postgame interview. Rich knows it has gone on for decades. But it is 2026, and there are 4K cameras everywhere.