Was Red Sox summer of love a mirage? Yankees beatdown exposes Boston | Opinion

In this blink-and-you-missed-it American League wild-card series that pitted the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees against each other for the second consecutive year, the Yankees' pair of victories – 9-0 in Game 1 and 9-2 in Game 2 Wednesday, Sept. 30 – illuminated the significant gulf between the 93-win Yankees and 87-win Red Sox.

That was obvious enough when the home team shut out the visitors for the first 14 innings of the series.

Yet for the Red Sox, these two games felt heavier, that they weren't actually right there with the Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays , the East trio looking down on the flailing plebes dotting the rest of the AL.