Quick Thoughts Ahead of the Wild Card Finale
- E.J. Fagan
- Oct 2, 2025
- 2 min read
By E.J. Fagan
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NOTE: The following comes from EJ Fagan's substack page and is shared with permission.
Please check out EJ's substack page for more great articles.
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Tonight is win or go home. Here’s what is on my mind:
If the Yankees can win one more against the Red Sox, I think they will go far. Boston seems almost perfectly designed to match up against the Yankees hitting and pitching. Garrett Crochet is one of the few guys who can go toe-to-toe with Max Fried, holding all of the top Yankee bats on the bench when he handed the ball to fellow lefty Aroldis Chapman. In contrast, the Blue Jays are going to throw three mediocre righty starters with a few unimpressive lefty relievers.
The Yankees have the advantage in Game 3. Schlittler has a little more experience than Early, but they are basically the same pitcher. But the Yankees exhausted the Red Sox best reliever in Garrett Whitlock last night and are generally a much better hitting team. Relatedly, as the RAB Thoughts newsletter points out, the Red Sox are one of the worst teams in the majors against high velocity four seamers.
Play Grisham in CF, Rice at C. Since August 1st, here are some Yankees against left-handed pitching. Rice is only above average, but is way better than Wells. Grisham is surprisingly excellent. You lose some defense behind the plate but are have your top outfield. And why did Jazz sit in Game 1 again?
Playoff Volpe? It’s only two games, but Volpe once again seems like a new player. He made two great defensive plays and hit a bunch of balls real hard. I was annoyed that he was playing over Cabarello at first, but I was wrong.
Playoff Stanton? Missing so far. I still don’t believe in magic, but it’s also just two games.
Will we see Will Warren in Game 3? They are going to struggle to get more than one inning each out of Bednar and Williams. Even if Schlittler goes 5, they may need to dip into their pen. I think I’d trust Doval, Hill and even Leiter over Warren, so maybe we’re talking about an early exit scenario only.
Boone really hasn’t used his bench much. It hasn’t helped that both Crochet and Bello shut the Yankees down for most of their appearances. I wonder if we’ll see a Jasson Dominguez stolen base tonight.
I don’t have huge complaints about Aaron Boone’s performance so far. Sitting Jazz might be over management, but also Crochet utterly destroys lefties. Bringing Jazz in as a defensive replacement while losing was odd. I wouldn’t have pulled Fried until he allowed a baserunner and don’t really trust Luke Weaver right now, but it wasn’t egregious.
Let’s go Yankees!
With what Warren did against Boston this year, cover trust him at all?
why not Rosario leadoff? they aint leaving this kid in forever (if they do it means things are going real REAL bad for the Yankees) why not give Rosario a great chance to get 2 maybe 3 ABs vs the kid before he gets pulled?
it would be so so so fun to be in that room. I want to know how Goldy handles this stuff. my guess is that he handles it perfectly. all we have heard all year is what a great pro and better human he is!!
in one season, he has become a big big favorite for me!! I really hope they try to convince him to come back as about a half time player next season. in my view, he brings a ton of value!!
all that said, Goldy could easily and some would say not wrongly, take the view that he had 2 hits in game one and Stanton has not had a good swing yet. he could sa…
I agreed with starting Rosario in Game 1 (6-for-9 lifetime vs. Crochet). It was like starting Paul Blair over Reggie Jackson vs. Paul Splittorff in 1977 ALCS Game 5, which worked out pretty well. Ironically, Rosario did nothing at the plate, but turned a sparkling 4-4-3 double play. Tonight, though, I'd start Jazz, particularly with a RHP on the mound. Schlittler isn't a ground-ball pitcher like Fried, but I'd still like the extra defense there.
At 3B it's Caballero over McMahon. As I described over on Tim's round-up, there's no defensive drop-off between them, and Cabs moiderlizes LHP, which confounds Mac.
I agree with you that I like our bats vs the jays pitching
but their hitters vs our bullpen worries me. they do not swing and miss and we dont have much for elite swing and miss in our pen. when Williams has his top notch changeup and when Cruz has his best version of control
but if Cruz is throwing too many balls and they are laying off his splitter ...
and if Williams cannot locate the FB (which still happens more often than not in my view) and his change is too high in the zone OR too low to be tempting...
Weaver has to be used but he is not reliable and if those 2 cannot get…