Boston Red Sox vs New York Yankees Prediction, Odds and Picks for Today, 10/01/25

Game 1 of the Wild Card Series between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees was an extremely entertaining game from a viewership perspective. Both Garret Crochet and Max Fried were lights out for their respective teams, tossing 14 combined innings of 1-run ball. Boston prevailed in the end with a 3-1 victory behind strong pitching and timely pinch-hitting from Masataka Yoshida. Game 2 figures to be an intense battle with the Yankees facing elimination and Boston hoping to advance to face the Toronto Blue Jays. While I admittedly am rooting for the Red Sox to win Game 2 and advance, I believe the Yankees will win with a bounce back effort.

Brayan Bello is a young pitcher I am fond of, but this will be his first taste of MLB playoff experience. He also is tasked with facing a tough Yankees lineup for the 3rd time in just 5 weeks. I will mention that Bello tossed 7 scoreless innings against the Yankees both in June and August, but his most recent matchup with them resulted in 4 earned runs across 5 innings. That outing was amidst a stretch of 5 September starts where he posted a 5.40 ERA across 25 innings of work. With 12 walks issued to only 16 strikeouts recorded in that span, I am not overly fond of a 3rd matchup with New York in such a short time span.

Carlos Rodon is the scheduled starter for the Yankees in Game 2. Rodon, like Bello, enjoyed a successful regular season, but unlike his counterpart he enters the postseason in good form. The southpaw hurler has registered a quality start in 8 of his last 9 outings with 5.2 innings of 2-run ball against the Red Sox in his lone miss during that stretch. It has been a dominant spurt of pitching for Rodon who has only faced this Boston lineup that one time since the middle of June. New York is obviously more desperate than Boston in Game 2, so Rodon could have a short leash, but I expect a strong pitching effort from the Yankees as they tie the series.

New York Yankees vs Boston Red Sox prediction: Yankees ML (-170) available at time of publishing. Playable to -175 odds.