Baseball fans could hardly ask for a more exciting bracket than the American League’s, with two sets of divisional rivals set to face each other in the Wild Card Round. But while the Detroit Tigers-Cleveland Guardians matchup has some intrigue because of the Tigers’ epic collapse to cede the division title to Cleveland, there’s no rivalry in sports quite like that between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. Game 1 of that series will begin at 6:08 p.m. ET tonight at Yankee Stadium, with the series winner set to face the division rival Toronto Blue Jays in the next round.
Max Fried, fresh off of a Pitcher of the Month award, is set to take the mound for New York, while Boston will counter with Cy Young Award candidate Garrett Crochet, who led the league in strikeouts this season.
At DraftKings Sportsbook, the Yankees are 1.5-run favorites (-137 on the Moneyline), with the run total set to seven. Meanwhile, the Red Sox are +113 on the Moneyline.
Betting Splits
Talk about even; there’s not remotely a consensus as to which team will win. Though Boston won nine of the team’s 13 meetings this season, including five of the seven at Yankee Stadium this season and 4-0 in Crochet’s starts, the Yankees have simply been the better team this month, going 18-7 in September to the Red Sox’s 13-11. Fried had a 1.89 ERA this month, while Crochet’s was just 3.55, and New York has had the better offense as well. A small majority (53%) of the public is backing the Yankees to take the series lead, but more big-money bettors are backing regular season trends to hold and for Boston to go one-up.
The public is even more split when it comes to the spread, with half of all bettors backing New York to win by multiple runs and the other half backing the Red Sox to cover. This season, Boston covered at a higher rate than the Yankees did, going 80-82 against the spread while New York was 79-83. The favored team has covered the spread in each of the last five games between these teams, which would benefit the Yankees tonight. That’s what big-money bettors believe; 58% of the handle has come in on New York to win by multiple runs. All four of the Yankees’ regular season wins against the Red Sox came by multiple runs, and they’ve won by multiple runs in 18 of Fried’s 32 starts.
All in all, the public is backing the offenses, with 60% of bets being placed on seven or more runs to be scored. In this case, bettors are bucking recent trends, as four of Boston’s last five games have gone under the run total and three of New York’s last five have. Still, every game at Yankee Stadium between the teams this season has gone over with the exception of a 1-0 Red Sox win on August 22, when Fried and Brayan Bello combined for 13 scoreless innings. Big-money bettors are behind the pitchers, which makes sense: Fried hasn’t allowed more than three runs since August 16, while Crochet has only allowed more than three six times all season, though one of those outings came at Yankee Stadium.
Most Popular Player Props
Here are the top five most-bet player props for tonight’s game:
- Aaron Judge 1+ Home Runs (+225)
- Giancarlo Stanton 1+ Home Runs (+325)
- Trevor Story 1+ Home Runs (+570)
- Alex Bregman 1+ Home Runs (+640)
- Garrett Crochet 10+ Strikeouts Thrown (+280)
There’s a common theme among the top five most-bet player props: power. Four of the five top props are home run props, and the other pertains to the pitching version of homers: strikeouts.
The appeal for Judge is obvious: he hit 53 homers this season, the fourth-most in the majors. He also led all of baseball in barrel rate, ranked second in total barrels and average exit velocity, and third in hard hit percentage. Because he’s six-foot-seven, he pairs the sixth-longest swing in the league with the seventh-fastest average speed. Though Crochet only allowed a 7.3% barrel rate and 24 homers this season, two of them were hit by Judge.
One of them came against Stanton, as well. The 35-year-old didn’t make his season debut until June 16 after dealing with injuries to both of his elbows, but he was spectacular in his 77 games, slugging 24 homers for the highest home run rate of his Hall of Fame career. Plus, 15 of his 24 homers came at Yankee Stadium, where he posted a 1.004 OPS. He went deep three times in the Yankees’ final three home games.
Story is more of a long shot, but after missing most of the 2023 and 2024 seasons with injuries, he returned to play 157 games in 2025 and slugged 25 homers, his best total since 2019, when he still played at high-altitude Coors Field. Two of those bombs came at Yankee Stadium, as he took Jonathan Loáisiga deep on June 8 and Will Warren deep on August 23. It’ll be tough going for any Red Sox player, though; Fried gave up just 14 home runs all season, including four at home.
Bregman did take Fried deep on September 13 at Fenway Park in a 5-3 New York victory, but it was one of just 18 that he hit all season. The two-time World Series winner ended the season slowly, slashing just .216/.310/.330 in September and hitting just two dingers, ending a disappointing second half in which he hit just seven home runs in 58 starts. The cause for optimism is that Bregman did hit 12 of his 18 homers on the road.
As for Crochet, betting on the guy who led the league in strikeouts against a team that struck out at the league’s third-highest rate is never a bad idea. The 26-year-old southpaw had eight separate games with 10 or more strikeouts, including two of his four starts against the Yankees and three in his last seven starts. New York struck out less frequently at home, but the +280 odds make it elite value.
