A wise man once said, there’s only one October. That still appears to be true, which means this is the best time of year to get Red Sox-Yankees. Of course, we’d rather see these two teams duke it out in the ALCS, but the Wild Card games are always, well, wild. So, Red Sox-Yankees should make things even more interesting. Here’s how to get in on this game via DraftKings Sportsbook.
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Boston Red Sox vs. New York Yankees
First Three Innings Total under 2.5 runs -120
Baseball can get really messy on any given day, especially when the Red Sox and Yankees are facing off. But, pitchers always manage to ramp things up when the postseason hits. Of course, Red Sox fans have seen Nathan Eovaldi do just that, and the Wild Card game’s win-or-go-home nature is the type of contest the Yankees signed Gerrit Cole to pitch in.
Despite his last showing against his old team at Fenway, Eovaldi usually does well vs. the Yankees. Even with his two-inning, seven-run outing vs. New York on Sept. 24, Eovaldi posted a 3.71 ERA vs. the Yankees over six starts against them this season. More importantly for this bet, Eovaldi held the Yankees scoreless through the first three innings in four of his six starts against them this year. He gave up just one run in one of those two exceptions — the other, of course, was his rough two-inning outing.
Although Cole’s 4.91 ERA vs. Boston this season may lead some to question how he’ll do on Tuesday, he had two quality starts in four chances vs. the Red Sox this season. Outside of his one rough outing vs. Boston, Cole held the Red Sox to one run over the first three innings in three starts.
Gerrit Cole over 4.5 hits allowed -130
As much as I expect Cole to limit Boston’s offensive production early, I still think he’ll give up hits over the course of his start. The right-hander has been near unhittable at times, but he did give up five-plus hits in 18 of his 30 regular season starts. Four of those 18 outings came vs. Boston — that’s right, Cole has hit the over on DraftKings Sportsbook’s hits allowed prop for Tuesday’s game every time he saw the Red Sox in 2021.
Cole isn’t one to hand out a lot of free passes. The Yankees ace never gave up more than three walks in a game this season, and he walked one or no batters in half of his 2021 starts. He is going to challenge hitters. Though, it’s not as if the Red Sox are stepping in the box looking for a walk. They finished 20th in walk rate this season.
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Red Sox +105
Both teams took messy routes to get to this point. The Yankees were a disappointment for the longest time, then they figured it out. The Red Sox overperformed, then came back down to earth. Then both teams were pushed to the brink in the last weekend of the regular season. But both survived long enough to get to this point.
At the end of it all, I like the Red Sox more on Tuesday. They had a little bit more pressure on them going into their last regular season series of 2021, but they responded to their disappointing series vs. Baltimore and completely came out on top. Whereas, the Yankees almost fed into the chaos seemingly everyone was cheering for.
Furthermore, I like Eovaldi a lot more in this situation. He’s got a better track record vs. the Yankees than Cole does vs. Boston, and Eovaldi is nails in the postseason. Boston’s bullpen can be worrisome, but let’s not pretend the guy finishing games off for the Yankees is Mariano Rivera.
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