The Red Sox turned to Jake Bennett on Saturday, giving the rookie lefthander his first start against the Yankees with a chance to clinch the four-game series with a game to spare. Bennett has taken Brayan Bello’s rotation spot and now gets the kind of assignment that can define a young pitcher fast.
For readers checking the matchup now, the timing is obvious. Boston won the first two games of the four-game series, and a third straight win would wrap it up before Sunday. Bennett, 1-3 with a 3.71 ERA, arrives on the back of six scoreless innings and nine strikeouts in Colorado on Monday, but he has never faced a Yankees batter. That makes this a first look for him and for a lineup that has already spent the week trying to solve Boston’s pitching.
There is at least some proof he can carry a game deep. His no-decision in Colorado was the latest sign that the rookie can miss bats and hold a lineup down when his stuff is working. The Red Sox have also had help from the rotation as a whole, with the staff turning in a quality start in nine straight games, a stretch that has helped keep Boston in position to finish the series early.
The test is sharper because the other side brings Gerrit Cole, who still owns a 2-2 record and a 3.62 ERA but is also trying to rebound from a rough Monday in Detroit, when he allowed season highs of five runs and nine hits in 4 1/3 innings. Cole has a 7-6 record and a 5.23 ERA in 19 career starts against the Red Sox, and he is 2-3 with a 5.52 ERA in eight career starts at Fenway Park. Those numbers do not make this a simple ace-versus-rookie script.
That is the friction in the matchup. Bennett is being asked to handle the Yankees for the first time while carrying a modest record, and Cole comes in with the better season line but the heavier recent blemish. The Yankees have hit.211 in their last nine games, lost 6-1 on Friday, and have dropped six of their last nine, leaving them trying to avoid another slide even as they have gone 12-10 since losing Aaron Judge to a fractured right rib.
If Bennett follows his Colorado outing with another calm start, Boston can finish the series before the weekend is over and keep control of a home field that has not been kind all season, with the Red Sox still 14-25 at home. If he cannot, the series shifts back onto a Yankees club that has already shown enough recent drift to make Saturday feel like a turning point for both teams.
