Juan Soto Delivers Extra-Inning Walk-Off in Wake of Yankees, Red Sox Making History
The Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees both enjoyed walk-off wins in extra innings on Wednesday.
On Boston's side of things, Tyler O'Neill crushed a three-run home run in the bottom of the 10th to give his team a critical 5-3 victory over the Baltimore Orioles. Down in the Bronx, the Yankees got a walk-off single from Jazz Chisholm Jr. in the bottom of the 11th against the Kansas City Royals.
According to Sports Reference's Katie Sharp, it marked the first time since June 23, 1979, that both the Red Sox and Yankees notched walk-off wins in extra innings on the same day.
That wasn't going to be possible Thursday, as the bitter rivals were starting their final head-to-head series of the season down at Yankee Stadium. And yet, New York still came through with their second straight extra-inning walk-off.
This time, it was Juan Soto who drove in the automatic runner on a single up the middle, burying Boston 2-1.
It marked the second walk-off hit of Soto's career, per Sharp, and the first of his Yankees career.
New York is now 2.0 games ahead of Baltimore in the AL East standings at 85-62. Boston, on the other hand, trails the Minnesota Twins by 4.5 games for the third and final AL Wild Card spot at 74-73.
The three remaining games the Red Sox and Yankees have against each other will prove crucial to both of their playoff pushes, although New York does have much more of a cushion to work with. While the season series is currently split 5-5, the Yankees have beat the Red Sox three times in a row and own a plus-10 run differential head-to-head.
Game two is scheduled to get underway at 7:05 p.m. ET on Friday. Tanner Houck and Clarke Schmidt have ben pegged as the probable starting pitchers.
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