The best rivalry in baseball adds a new chapter to its long history, as the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox are set to faceoff in a winner-take-all single wild card game to advance to the American League Divisional Series, tonight, Oct. 5, at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN.
You don’t have to be from New York or Boston to know the significance of Yankees vs Red Sox (though of course it’s raised to a whole other level if you are a fan of one of these teams). The rivalry has seen plenty of memorable moments already — from Babe Ruth going from the Sox to the Yanks to Aaron Boone’s ALCS-winning home-run to the Rex Sox’s incredible 0-3 series comeback in 2004. Tonight’s AL Wild Card game will create some new memories as both teams look to keep their World Series hopes alive.
Also: How to watch 2021 MLB playoffs
The game is being played at Boston’s Fenway Park, with ESPN’s Matt Vasgersian, Alex Rodriguez and Buster Olney calling the game. Here is everything you need to know to watch tonight’s game.
Yankees vs Red Sox wild card matchup
The AL Wild Card game will be the 20th meeting between the Yankees and the Red Sox this year, with the Sox having the edge entering tonight, but just barely, 10-9. The two teams finished with identical 92-70 records during the regular season, but Boston held to the head-to-head tiebreaker giving them home field advantage at Fenway.
The starting pitchers for each team tonight will be Nathan Eovaldi for the Boston Red Sox and Gerrit Cole for the New York Yankees.
Cole has been strong for the Yankees this season, winning 16 games and posting a 3.23 ERA. With the bats, the Yanks have a number of players that can hit a home run at any time, including Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Anthony Rizzo and Joey Gallo. New York finished the season 7-3 in order to clinch a spot in the Wild Card game. Can they keep their hot streak going?
Over with the Red Sox, Eovaldi has been their workhorse this season, pitching the most innings and getting the most strikeouts for the team, while posting a 3.75 ERA. While the Sox have a little less pop in their bats than the Yankees, they actually scored more than 100 more runs than their rivals this season with the likes of Rafael Devers and Xander Bogaerts swinging away. However, they will be without one of their best offensive players, J.D. Martinez, for the Wild Card game.
The Yankees are the betting favorites for the game, though it is close, as they are favored by 1.5 points.
How to watch Yankees vs Red Sox in the U.S.
ESPN is going all out for what will be their only MLB playoff broadcast of the 2021 season. In addition to the traditional game broadcast on ESPN, an alternate Statcast broadcast will air simultaneously on ESPN2. All of ESPN’s Wild Card coverage will also be available to watch through the ESPN app and the ESPN website.
As a cable network, anyone looking to watch the game on ESPN or ESPN2 who are traditional pay-TV subscribers will need to double check that their plan includes ESPN and ESPN2 (most do). Meanwhile, live TV streaming services including Fubo TV, Hulu with Live TV, Sling TV and YouTube TV all carry both networks. If you can’t be in front of a TV for the game, to watch it on the ESPN App or on the ESPN website you do still need a subscription to one of the above mentioned services.
How to watch Yankees vs Red Sox in the U.K.
Even though baseball is America’s pastime, any fans of the game over in the U.K. can still tune in for playoff and World Series action, including tonight's Yankees vs Red Sox game. BT Sport will broadcast the games to its subscribers through its ESPN subchannel.
You will need to be a BT Sports subscriber to watch the network’s coverage of the MLB playoffs. A monthly subscription is available at £25.
How to watch Yankees vs Red Sox from anywhere in the world
You don’t have to be in the U.S. (or even the U.K.) to watch the Yankees vs Red Sox . MLB has shared all of the international broadcasters covering the games for the entire postseason, but if you’ve cut the cord entirely and none of these options are immediately available to you, there’s still the option of a VPN, or virtual private network.
A VPN is designed to route network traffic through a specific set of servers in a specific country, allowing viewers to watch content on an encrypted feed over a computer.
