The Red Sox and Garrett Crochet Just Ripped The Hearts From The Chests of The Yankees And Their Fans And I'm Not Sure How They Recover

I had my doubts. 

Sitting with a half dozen Yankees fans, a few Mets fans, one other Red Sox fan, and a giant teddy bear for Sox and Yankees in the Barstool New York gambling cave, I was pretty nervous early. 

Paul Goldschmidt and Aaron Judge delivered back-to-back hard-hit singles to open the bottom of the first at Yankee Stadium. Garrett Crochet would get a strikeout and a double play to get out of the inning, but it was a bit of a shaky start. 

Then, in the bottom of the second, Anthony Volpe hit a two-strike pitch that Crochet left up in the zone for a solo home run to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead. 

Maybe Crochet wasn't built for the spotlight of Sox/Yanks in the postseason. 
Maybe the Yankees' 8-game winning streak heading into the playoffs was a sign they were unstoppable. 
Maybe I'd be stuck listening to Marty Mush celebrate for the next three hours. 

And then the Red Sox ace settled in.

The hard-throwing lefty would retire the next 17 Yankees en route to an all-time performance in the Red Sox's 3-1 win over the Yankees to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three series. 

He was awesome. A career-high 117 pitches in the biggest game of his career. Of those, he had 78 strikes and 16 swings and misses.

He had the vaunted Yankee offense off-balance all night; a lot of New York batters shaking their heads going back to the dugout—a sensational start. 

Even after his dominance, the Yankees had a chance to win the game in the 9th. They would load the bases with no outs against former Yankee Aroldis Chapman. From there, he struck out Giancarlo Stanton, got Jazz Chisholm to fly out, and then struck out Trent Grisham to end the game. I called the pitch location, no big deal. 

Credit the Sox for scratching out three runs on no home runs against the Yankees. I thought Alex Bregman's RBI double in the 9th was huge to give Chapman a little breathing room. 

But the story was Crochet. Not only did the Sox give up top prospects for the former White Sox ace in the offseason, they made sure to sign him to an expensive extension. He looked worth every penny Tuesday night. 

And I get it, Traik Skubal is the AL Cy Young winner. But Crochet delivered all year and looked every bit the ace in Game 1 of the Playoffs. I mean, how about this nugget- 

I mean, that stat is so silly it sounds made up. What a performance. 

And oh man, the Yankees had their chances. Two on and no one out in the first. Bases loaded in the ninth. Aaron Boone letting a light-hitting catcher hit late. 

Boone was bad. The Yankees came up small in the clutch. An avalanche of "what ifs" for the team and their fans. It's the kind of game you don't bounce back from. 

Teams that have lost the first game of these best-of-three Wild Card series have never bounced back - they're 0-12 in advancing in the three years of this new format. 

The Yankees will be back out there Wednesday night with their season on the line and the pressure of 15 straight seasons without a World Series hanging over Yankee Stadium 

Given what Chrochet and the Red Sox did to them Tuesday night, I expect a lot of sleepless nights for the New York players, coaches… and fans.