Anthony Rizzo is headed back to Yankee Stadium, and this time he’ll be there with a microphone instead of a bat.
The Yankees and Red Sox open another best-of-three Wild Card Series Tuesday night in the Bronx, renewing one of baseball’s most familiar October matchups. New York finished the regular season 93-68, Boston came in at 87-75, and the Yankees took the season series 7-6, including four wins in six games at Yankee Stadium, according to MLB. The winner moves on to face the AL East champion Tampa Bay Rays in the Division Series.
It’s the second straight year the Yankees have hosted Boston in the Wild Card Series, and the seventh postseason meeting between the teams.
Rizzo will be part of the broadcast team for NBC Sports, which has him back inside the Stadium where he spent parts of four seasons as the Yankees’ first baseman. NBC announced that he’ll work as an “Inside the Pitch” analyst for the 8 p.m.
ET telecasts Tuesday and Wednesday on NBC and Peacock. Jason Benetti will call the games, with Joe Girardi and Lou Merloni alongside him as analysts.
Rizzo will also join Bob Costas on-site for pregame coverage.
His run in pinstripes ended after the 2024 World Series, when the Yankees declined his option that November. Rizzo played his final major league game for New York in Game 5 of that World Series, then retired as a Chicago Cub in September 2025 after 14 major league seasons.
NBC brought Rizzo into its MLB coverage before the 2026 season, and he has already worked regular-season games and pregame shows, including a June Yankees-Red Sox telecast from Fenway Park.
He’s not walking into this rivalry cold, either. Rizzo was in the Yankees lineup the last time New York and Boston played a winner-take-all Wild Card Game before MLB expanded the round.
In 2021, he batted leadoff at Fenway Park and homered off Nathan Eovaldi in the sixth inning of a 6-2 Yankees loss. That blast cut Boston’s lead to 3-1.
Across 370 regular-season games with the Yankees, Rizzo hit 60 home runs and drove in 172 runs. His best season in the Bronx came in 2022, when he hit 32 homers with an .817 OPS. He also came back from two fractured fingers to play in the final two rounds of the 2024 postseason, and MLB records show he hit .267 with six walks in 10 playoff games as the Yankees won the AL pennant before losing to the Dodgers.
NBC’s booth gives the series voices tied closely to both clubs. Girardi managed the Yankees from 2008 through 2017 and won the franchise’s most recent World Series title in 2009. Merloni spent parts of six seasons with Boston.
Rizzo brings the most current Yankees perspective. He played for Aaron Boone through four playoff runs and the 2024 World Series, and several players from his time in the clubhouse remain central to New York’s postseason picture, including Judge and Gerrit Cole.
All three games, if necessary, will be played at Yankee Stadium, with Game 1 and Game 2 set for 8 p.m. ET Tuesday and Wednesday and Game 3, if needed, on Thursday.
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