Yankees ride balanced attack, advance to ALDS with Game 2 throttling of Red Sox

There was one notable diversion from the Tuesday night blueprint. While Game 1 was something of a story of individual performances—with Cam Schlittler 's incredible start and Ben Rice 's historic night at the plate—Game 2 saw contributions from all across the lineup. Max Fried was brilliant, yes, but the plate production was remarkably balanced. Every batter who started the game got a hit, and five players drove in a run. And best of all, the Red Sox headed home with just two runs and eight total hits for their troubles. They'll watch from the couch as the Yankees advance with burning eyes toward the top-seeded Rays .

The first parallel to Game 1 was the impressive starting pitching that got us underway. Max Fried struck out the first two Red Sox he faced, freezing Adley Rutschman on a picturesque changeup. Rutschman had tested the left field foul pole on his previous swing, but it hooked wide. Sonny Gray replied with an equally tidy start, getting Ben Rice to flail over top of a sweeper and setting down the top of the Yankee order quickly.

From there, the tennis rally from the two starters continued. Fried replied with a seven-pitch second, Gray worked around a two-out infield single. Fried navigated a hustle double (aided by a rather lackadaisical effort in center field from Trent Grisham ) to put up another zero, Gray gave up a little bleeder of a hit to Ryan McMahon but nothing else. Suddenly we were already in the bottom of the fourth inning, still scoreless.