Red Sox Now Running Away with Division After Sweeping Yankees

The Boston Red Sox are firmly in the driver’s seat to win the American League East for the third straight season.

After achieving a four-game sweep of the division rival New York Yankees, the Sox’s division lead over New York was pushed to 9.5 games.

Based on how Boston’s playing, it may be tough for the Yanks to overtake them for the division crown by seasons end especially with Aaron Judge being out. This series was a big one for both teams but Boston is the only team that decided to show up.

The Sox in-season acquisitions Steve Pearce and Nathan Eovaldi were two of the stars of this series. Eovaldi pitched 8 shutout innings in his second start with the team while Pearce hit 4 homers in 12 at-bats over the four games.

It wasn’t just the new guys that impressed either. Undervalued long man Brian Johnson had 11 K’s over 5 innings to start the series, Rick Porcello the followed that up with an 86 pitch complete game, and David Price finished off the series with a quality start on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball.

The Bronx Bombers lineup is not close to full strength without Judge and Gary Sanchez, but to get swept by your biggest rival in a big series is inexcusable. Then again, props should be given to Boston for stepping up when it mattered.

The Sox increasing their division lead becomes especially more important in the era of this 1 game playoff. If the Sox can avoid the vaunted wild card game, that would be ideal.

The lack of playoff success from Red Sox pitchers makes the idea of playing in the wild card game terrifying, even if they are a 100 win team.

We will see what happens the rest of the year, but it appears the Yanks continue to free fall while the Sox are winning in every which way they can.

-Jarrod Ribaudo (@Jribs53)