American League Wild Card Preview

Tonight, the best rivalry in baseball-- maybe all of sports, takes center stage on ESPN as the New York Yankees travel to Boston to play the Red Sox in the winner take all one game playoff American League Wild Card game.

The Red Sox have the home field advantage in this game because, although the teams share the exact same regular season record, Boston won the series 10 games to 9.  Boston won the first seven games in the series, however, the Yankees have won 9 of the last 12 meetings-- including the last six.

Gerrit Cole (16-8, 3.23 ERA) will toe the rubber for the Yankees tonight.  The $300 million dollar man has 6 starts against the Red Sox this year and is 2-2 with a 4.91 ERA in those games.

Boston will counter with Nathan Eovaldi (11-9, 3.75 ERA) who also has 6 starts against the AL East foe this year-- Nathan has a 2-2 record with a 3.71 ERA in those meetings.  The Red Sox WILL be without slugger J.D. Martinez tonight due to an ankle injury.

On September 24th, the Yankees beat the Red Sox 8-3 at Fenway, with Eovaldi giving up 7-runs in 2.2 innings pitched while Cole got the win (6 innings, 3 runs, 6 strikeouts).

The Yankees recent success against the Red Sox has seen them outscore the Red Sox 31-14 in the current six games win streak-- that includes a 3 game sweep at Fenway.

This game opened up as Yankees -115 road favorites to win the game.  The line has been moved up to -125 in some books as heavy SHARP money has come in on the Yankees.

The total opened at 8.5 and sharps immediately hit the under 8.5 with the hook, dropping the line down to 8. When the total is 8 or more in the MLB playoffs, the under is roughly 54 percent over the past decade. The forecast calls for a chilly 60 degrees and 5-10 MPH winds blowing in from dead center at Fenway. Both of these teams are "under" teams. The Yankees were 89-69 to the under in the regular season and the Red Sox were 85-74 to the under. The under is 8-2 the last 10 games between these teams.

This is a classic matchup between to rivals that should push the needle on any sports fan's radar.  This is going to be great for the sport of baseball and will add to the excitement of Wednesday's National League Wild Card game-- St. Louis Cardinals at Los Angeles Dodgers.