The Yankees’ October pitching plan could hand the Red Sox exactly the kind of break they’d welcome in a Wild Card rematch.
Boston and New York have both already punched their playoff tickets, and the expectation is that the two rivals will meet again at Yankee Stadium in the 2025 Wild Card round. The Red Sox have already offered a clear look at how they may line up their own rotation against Cleveland, with Payton Tolle, Sonny Gray and Ranger Suarez all getting starts in that series before the regular season finale. That setup would leave them with plenty of rest before the postseason begins, though nothing has been locked in.
The Yankees, though, have been harder to read.
Until September 22, New York was still chasing a long-shot path to overtake the Tampa Bay Rays for the American League lead and grab a first-round bye. That possibility disappeared when the Rays clinched at Yankee Stadium, leaving the Yankees stuck in the Wild Cards.
Since then, the order of their rotation has raised questions. Carlos Rodón and Max Fried handled the first two games of the four-game set with Tampa, followed by Gerrit Cole, and then Cam Schlittler in the finale. If Schlittler is the choice for Game 1 against Boston, the way the Yankees lined things up doesn’t give him any extra rest, which makes the whole sequence look a little strange.
That matters because New York is still weighing who gets the ball in the opener, the game that usually carries the most weight in a short series. Schlittler has been excellent against the Red Sox in his young career, posting a 0.74 ERA and a 0.986 WHIP over 24.1 innings. On paper, that makes him the obvious candidate to open the series.
But the Yankees appear to be leaning another direction.
The current setup points toward Cole starting Game 1. He hasn’t had his best season, but it has still been a good one: a 3.61 ERA, 1.10 WHIP and 131 strikeouts across 127 innings. Boston would certainly prefer to see him first, especially after tagging him for four runs on seven hits over 5.1 innings on June 27, part of the Red Sox’s four-game sweep of New York that sparked their historic winning summer.
There’s also another possibility in the mix. Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake said the club is considering Fried for Game 1, according to Bryan Hoch of MLB.com.
Fried would be working on more rest than Schlittler would if the rookie were pushed into the opener, and that’s one of the main reasons New York might hold Schlittler back. Fried has been sharp this season, with a 2.80 ERA, 0.99 WHIP and 104 strikeouts in 112.2 innings.
He’s not the ideal first matchup for Boston either, having turned in one dominant outing and another solid, shortened one against the Sox this year, but the Red Sox would at least know he’d have to be dealt with eventually.
However the Yankees sort it out, this shapes up as a tough matchup for both clubs. Boston and New York have two of the best rotations in the sport, and either way the other side is going to have work to do. Still, if the Yankees do line up Cole for Game 1, that would probably be the outcome Boston would like most.
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