Well, that couldn’t have gone any better. The Yankees made all our consternation about lineups and matchups look silly, as they crushed their arch rival in a two game sweep by a combined score of 18-2. These two games were as complete an effort as we’ve seen from the Yankees in years. They were the type of performances we asked for out of them in our preview. Clean on defense, smart and aggressive on the bases, strong pitching and opportunistic with the bats.

There were a couple of key themes to these two wins, aside from Chad Tracy imitating Grady Little in 03. The first and most likely to happen from before the series started was the dominance of Yankee starting pitching. For the second year in a row Cam Schlittler carved the Red Sox up punching out ten over 6+ innings in game one. Number 31 was absolutely brilliant, and not to be out done Max Fried took the ball in game two and delivered as well. In spite of not having full command of his pitches, the crafty lefty managed to strike out 6 over 6 innings while only allowing one run. It’s really the beauty of Fried that even when he isn’t on, he can grind it out and find a way, in the vein of a vintage throwback ace from the 70’s and 80’s.

The next big story in these two games has to be the production of the Yankees home grown players contributions. You really can’t enough about how good all of them were in this series. For the second straight year Austin Wells and Schlittler killed Boston while Ben Rice dominated game one at the plate. The two newest kids in town, Spencer Jones and George Lombard, looked like the stage wasn’t too much for them to handle and their confidence only grew. They have a few really special players in this group and it’s going the be exciting to see what they do for this team the rest of this postseason, let alone the next few years.

To bring it all together, there was the element of timely hitting and complete rallies on offense. The Yankees worked counts, played small ball, and made things happen by putting balls in play and stealing bases. To be blunt, for the first time in a long time, they played baseball. They were able to blend that with RBI knocks and dagger home runs, as the Yankees went 9-20 with runners in scoring position. They painted their masterpiece in game two’s sixth inning, a frame where they bagged six runs. It started innocently enough with Spencer Jones hustling to reach on a strikeout, and then it snowballed from there. Check out the clip above to take it all in.

With the Red Sox dispatched, the Yanks are headed south to their spring training home, Tampa Florida to battle the Rays. Obviously these two raced each other to the finish for the East Title but over the last decade or so this rivalry has blossomed and the games in Tampa have become very contentious. This series will be the Yankees first playoff games at the Trop in team history, and it’s certainly not an easy place to play. While there will be plenty of Yankee fans in the seats, the Rays thrive in their ballpark, using their fast small ball team to challenge opponents. The Rays will make your play defense and make you play outside of your comfort zone as a team, something the Yankees have struggled with many times.

To counter that, Aaron Boone will have a versatile mix of players similar to the roster in the Wild Card series. Between the quality of his pitching and the depth on the bench, with or without Aaron Judge and Stanton, the Yankees have enough to get to the Rays. If you’re looking for an edge for the Yankees in this series, look no further than the bullpen, an area where the Rays have some questions. While they have a mix of solid relievers, their group pen ERA is over five, a stark contrast to the Yankees 3.15. If this becomes a battle of the bullpens, the bombers should be able to take advantage of this flaw.

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