The Yankees decisively won game two to sweep the Wild Card round

The New York Yankees beat their rival the Boston Red Sox 9–2 in Game Two of the Wild Card round to sweep the best of three series. After winning the first game 9–0, the Yankees had a +16 run differential in the wild card round, which is the largest run differential ever in the best of three Wild Card round of the playoffs.

The +16 run differential by the Yankees is the highest by a team in its first two games of a postseason of all time. The +8 run differential per game is the largest in any postseason series all-time (minimum two games). The Yankees had back-to-back games scoring nine runs in the playoffs for the fourth time in franchise history. The previous times were in 2020 (three games in a row), 1998 (three games in a row) and 1960 (two streaks of two games). They lost the World Series in 1960, they won the World Series in 1998 and they lost three games to two in the ALDS in 2020.

The Yankees are now 16–13 in the playoffs against the Red Sox. This is the seventh time they had played the Red Sox in the playoffs and they had gone 3–3 going into this series. This was the Yankees’ first postseason series sweep since the 2020 Wild Card round against the then Indians.

Cam Schlittler and Max Fried combined to throw 12.1 innings while only allowing one run and five hits in the two games. Fried allowed just one run in Wednesday’s Game Two and Schlittler threw 6.2 scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts in the Game One win on Tuesday. Schlittler and Fried…