Boston's season is over, and it did not end with a fight so much as a flatline. The Yankees swept the Red Sox out of the wild card round with a 9-2 finishing blow, outscoring them 17-1 across the series, and the latest Boston Red Sox injury news landed on the same day: Roman Anthony is dealing with a wrist problem on top of the finger issue he was already carrying. Jahmai Jones stepped in. There was nothing left to step into.
The number that tells the whole story is 26. Twenty-six consecutive postseason innings without a run. Over that stretch Boston hit .136/.183/.148, which is not a slump, that is a team that stopped making contact that mattered. A .148 slugging percentage in October means the few balls they did put in play landed softly and died. Cody Bellinger's three-run homer was the exclamation point on Wednesday's close-out, but the exclamation point was decoration. The sentence had been finished for two days.
How did the Yankees sweep the Red Sox?
Pitching, mostly, and then the kind of offense that shows up when the other side can't answer. New York has spent this year looking like a team that solved a problem, and the reporting around the league keeps circling back to the Adley Rutschman trade as the hinge: the Orioles wanted four pieces including top prospects, the Yankees sent two plus cash and held the line. Catchers who can handle a staff in October are worth more than the math says in February. New York heads to Tampa Bay, with the next game Saturday at 6:31 ET.
Boston Red Sox injury news: Roman Anthony's wrist
Anthony's wrist is the part of this that carries into the winter. A finger issue you can play through with tape and stubbornness. A wrist is the whole swing, and for a young hitter Boston has been building its next five years around, every day he spends not swinging is a day the development clock stops. Jones filling the lineup card is the symptom, not the problem. The problem is that a roster overhaul is already being written in Boston, and now it gets written with a question mark next to its best young bat.
How did the White Sox beat the Astros?
This is the one I'll remember. Chicago went into Houston and took it 7-3, and if you've watched this franchise for the last two decades you know what that means. They have not won a postseason series since 2005. Their last playoff trips ended quietly in 2008, 2020, and 2021.
checked the almanac: the last time the White Sox won anything in October, they swept the Astros in the 2005 World Series. twenty-one years later, the first door they kick down is Houston's again. baseball keeps its own filing system.
The story going around is that they got a papal blessing from Pope Leo XIV the day before, which, for a Chicago-born pontiff and a South Side fan base that has waited this long, is the single most Chicago detail of the postseason. Cleveland is next, Saturday at 1:01 ET.
What comes next
San Diego handled the Cubs 4-1 behind pitching and enough offense, and they drew Milwaukee, Saturday at 8:30 ET. The Padres subplot worth your attention is Joe Musgrove, back on a wild card roster as a reliever 727 days after his last big league appearance. Seven hundred and twenty-seven days. Whatever you think of this team, root for that man to get the ball.
Philadelphia looked finished and wasn't. Schwarber and Harper went back to back in the eighth, Bohm walked it off in the tenth, Painter closed it with three scoreless, 4-3. The Phillies are in Atlanta tonight at 8:11 ET, and the question in that dugout is how Don Mattingly lines up his arms after burning through that finish.
What I'm watching next: whether Boston says anything concrete about Anthony's wrist before the winter meetings chatter starts, because that answer shapes every other move they make.