Sonny Gray and Willson Contreras didn’t hide their frustration after Game 2, and both made it clear they weren’t buying the logic behind Boston’s choices in a Yankees beatdown that ended the Red Sox’ run.
Gray, who was once a headache at Yankee Stadium after arriving in 2017, looked sharp and in control over 70 pitches. He wasn’t able to get through five innings, but he appeared positioned to keep going deeper before manager Chad Tracy went to banged-up deadline lefty Erik Miller. Gray didn’t like that call one bit.
"I'm the best pitcher in the American League going through the order for a third time. I think that's a fact.
I would've liked to live or die with me in that moment...ask the guys in here if they felt the same way. I felt strong, confident."
Gray also was asked whether Boston would ever be a place he’d consider returning to as a free agent. His answer was short: "I don't know." The moment carried extra weight given that he has hinted at retirement before, and after watching Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer get storybook sendoffs, he was pulled at 70 pitches in a playoff game at the ballpark he dislikes most.
Contreras, meanwhile, went after the larger process behind the decision-making. He first responded to the hook with a zipped-lips gesture, then launched into a pointed critique of how data gets used.
"It's not enough when you have talent, or you have data, or computers that are telling you what to do. This is baseball. The data is here to help us...but you need experience and to bet on the guys to win games."
Boston’s move to Miller backfired quickly. Miller, who has struggled since the deadline, gave up the second Yankees run for the second straight day.
Contreras had earlier homered in the sixth to cut the deficit in half, then later set up on the wrong side of first base to take a throw from Adley Rutschman. After that, a swinging Spencer Jones strikeout opened the floodgates, and the Yankees piled on from there.
The bigger picture around the Red Sox is just as ugly. The club stayed committed to Tracy and Craig Breslow this season after a 32-5 run that may have masked deeper tension and disagreement inside the operation.
That stretch helped sell the idea, but October told a different story. Boston scored just two runs in 18 innings this week, and after that kind of collapse, it’s hard to pin this one on analytics alone.
In Other News...
Cardinals Just Added To A Trade Return Fans Need To Judge Carefully
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For St. Louis, this is less about immediate impact than adding another arm to the organizational pipeline. The Cardinals are treating Curley as pitching depth with a chance to develop further, which is often the quiet logic behind these delayed-return trades. The real question for fans is whether this turns into one of those moves that looks modest now but becomes easier to judge only after the next step in Curleys development plays out. [Read more 🡒]
Rainiel Rodriguez Is Entering Historic Territory For The Cardinals
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For a Cardinals organization that has spent plenty of time searching for impact bats, Rodriguezs rise stands out because of both the performance and the age at which it arrived. He finished with 23 home runs and a profile that kept separating him from the rest of the system, putting him in a place few players reach this quickly and leaving the next question centered on how fast the club will push him from here. [Read more 🡒]
Cardinals Just Got Pulled Into A Max Scherzer Debate
Max Scherzers name is back in the St. Louis conversation, and this time its less about what he once meant to the game and more about whether the Cardinals could make sense as a late-career landing spot. Greg Amsinger of MLB Network floated the idea on 104.1 KMOX Sports, pointing to the right-handers St. Louis roots and future Hall of Fame case as reasons the discussion has some local appeal.
The pitch comes with obvious caveats, though. Scherzer has dealt with declining performance and injuries over the past three seasons, which is why any Cardinals talk around him is as much about mentorship and depth as it is about innings and impact. Amsinger framed it as a possible fit for the 2027 season, but for now there has been no report of negotiations or any agreement, leaving it more as a debate than a destination. [Read more 🡒]