By Patrick Whalen

Ladies and Gentleman the wait is finally over. The Red Sox are officially your 2018 American League East Division Champs! They couldn’t have done it in a better setting in the Bronx against the Yankees, finally putting the dagger in all Yankee fans hearts. The game was classic Red Sox. They jumped on the Yankees early, the Yankees then took the lead and for a while, it was not looking good but then the Red Sox ran the ole start hitting bombs and retake the lead play and finished the job winning 11-6 and champagne popping ensued. The Sox got some damage done early via the smoking hot bat of Brock Holt who hit a solo shot off Tanaka in the third to give the Sox an early 4-2 lead.

Eduardo Rodriguez struggled mightily earlier on in the game going 3.2 innings giving up 5 and walking 7. Heath Hembree then had to come in to try and clean up E-Rods mess, bases loaded, 2 outs and Giancarlo Stanton hit a classic Yankee Stadium pop fly grand slam that probably went about 250 feet. Steven Wright then came in and proceeded to throw 3 innings of shutout ball to quite the Yankees and give the Sox a chance. With the Sox down 1 in the seventh Jackie Bradley Jr came up and hit a game-tying bomb into the second deck off Chad Green.

Later that inning with the bases loaded Xander Bogarets hit a sac fly to center that would score 1 run and then Miguel Andujar couldn’t handle Aaron Hicks throw and it skipped into the stands and allowed Benintendi to score as well which made it 8-6. Then in the 8th inning, Mookie Betts might have just locked up his A.L. MVP with a 3 run dinger to left off Aroldis Chapman to make it 11-6 and pretty much seal the game.

The Sox just had to get 6 out to finally officially claim the A.L. East crown. Braiser came in and pitched a perfect 8th and then Kimbrel came in and shut the door in the 9th to end it and how appropriate that the last out be a strikeout of Giancarlo Stanton. Especially after the Sox lost out on getting him in the offseason and losing Stanton let them sign J.D. Martinez, who is a much better hitter and in any other season is probably the MVP over his teammate Mookie Betts, for a lot less than 300 million dollars.

After this, the gold bottle popping ensued in the visitors locker room in Yankees Stadium. The Red Sox got to clinch in their arch rival’s stadium in front of the enemy’s fans and that was one of the sweetest sights to watch. Plus with that loss now the Yankees are only 1.5 games up on the A’s for home field in the wild card game and also watch out for the Rays 8 back of the Yankees, but the Yankees have 3 with Baltimore, who the struggle with, 4 in Tampa, and 3 in Boston. Its a slim chance but very possible if the Rays can sweep that the Red Sox not only could clinch the division in New York but also knock the Yankees out of the playoffs. Oh, how sweet the next two weeks could be.

Looking ahead to the playoffs now the Red Sox pretty much have home field advantage locked up, just not officially but they lead Houston by 9.5 in that category so it will be clinched very soon. This, of course, means the Sox will be getting the wild card game winner which right now is the Yankees and A’s and potentially if all hell breaks loose the Rays could get in. I would easily prefer to get the Yankees out of that matchup. The Sox have played very well against their rivals this year and have pretty much owned them at Fenway. Granted both series were early in the season and both teams have changed and grown since then but the Sox struggled against Oakland. Also, the Oakland A’s are on fire as of late and everyone knows that some teams can catch fire going into October and make a deep run into the postseason. The Yankees do not scare me especially over the last month and a half since they’ve been playing .500 ball. Plus who can forget that 4 game sweep of the Yankees in Fenway in the first week of August. That series solidified, at least in my opinion, that the Sox can easily knock out the Yankees in October because the Yankees came in looking to try and shrink the Sox division lead and get back into the division chase and instead left Fenway losing 4 straight 9.5 games gout of first place and that pretty much sealed up the division for the Sox with 2 months to go. The Sox are not afraid of the Yankees and A’s are just a straight up better ball club right now. Can the Sox still beat the A’s, yes, but I believe that series will be harder for the Sox to win. The easiest way for the Sox to get to at least the ALCS is through the Yankees.