BOSTON — The Yankees and Red Sox opened a three-game series Tuesday night at Fenway Park, with Connelly Early starting for Boston and Luis Gil going for New York in the first April meeting between the rivals since 2022.
The Red Sox arrived after an 8-6 win over the Tigers on Monday afternoon, a needed response after they managed just four runs in the first three games of that series before breaking through with 12 hits in the finale. The Yankees had Monday off after finishing a three-game sweep of the Royals with a 7-0 win Sunday, and they came in with one of the season’s hottest middle-of-the-order bats still rolling.
Ben Rice has led the league with a 1.276 OPS and homered in four straight games, while he and Aaron Judge both went deep in Sunday’s win. As a pair, Rice and Judge have combined for an MLB-leading 17 home runs this season, and eight of New York’s 13 wins have featured at least two homers. That power profile gives the Yankees a different look from a Boston team trying to keep pressure on opponents with a younger lineup that has leaned on contact and traffic on the bases.
Early has not allowed more than two runs in any of his four starts and gave up one run in six innings in his last outing, a 9-5 win over the Twins. He had not faced any Yankees hitters in the regular season before Tuesday, though his lone appearance against New York came in Game 3 of last season’s playoff series, when he struck out six and allowed three earned runs in 3⅔ innings. Gil, meanwhile, has been tough on Boston in a limited sample, going 2-1 with a 0.99 ERA in five starts against the Red Sox and allowing two runs over 11 innings against them last season.
Boston’s lineup featured Roman Anthony in left field, Wilyer Abreu in right and Masataka Yoshida as the designated hitter, with Yoshida carrying a.440 average and a 1.077 OPS over a stretch in which he has hit safely in seven of his last eight games. Caleb Durbin also entered having reached base safely in each of his last 14 starts. Cora said the club is trying to create offense by making opponents work and maximizing the roster, a formula Boston likely needs if it is going to keep pace in a series that still feels like a marker game for both teams in April.
The setting matters because Yankees vs Red Sox in April has been rare lately, and because both clubs came in with evidence that their lineups can swing a game quickly. New York’s power is showing in homers, Boston’s is showing in volume and sustained at-bats, and the first test of that contrast came Tuesday night with two pitchers who have already given their clubs reasons to trust them.