When the Yankees and Red Sox open the 2026 American League Wild Card Series on Tuesday in the Bronx, they will add another October chapter to a rivalry that has somehow produced fewer postseason meetings than its century of heat might suggest. New York earned home field by taking this year’s season series, 7-6. It comes only one year after the Yankees took a three-game Wild Card set from Boston.
The clubs have met six times in the postseason, with the 2025 series the most recent, while the 1978 AL East tiebreaker remains the unofficial seventh entry in the rivalry’s October ledger. That one-game showdown technically extended the regular season, but nobody in either clubhouse ever treated it that way.
The road to another October meeting
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1978 AL East tiebreaker: Yankees 5, Red Sox 4. New York had been 14 games behind Boston as late as July 19, then charged back with a September sweep at Fenway Park. The clubs finished tied after the Yankees lost their final regular-season game and the Red Sox won theirs, setting up an Oct. 2 tiebreaker in Boston.
Carl Yastrzemski’s solo homer and Jim Rice’s RBI single put the Red Sox ahead 2-0 against Ron Guidry. In the seventh, though, Bucky Dent sent a three-run homer over the Fenway wall after the Yankees put two men aboard. Reggie Jackson later homered as New York built its cushion. Goose Gossage got Rice and Yastrzemski for the final outs of a 5-4 victory, sending the Yankees to the postseason. They went on to win the World Series.
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1999 ALCS: Yankees over Red Sox. Realignment had created an AL Wild Card berth in 1994, finally opening a route for both AL East clubs to reach the same postseason. In 1999, New York won the division and swept Texas in the Division Series, while Boston finished four games back, entered as the Wild Card and beat Cleveland in five games.
The Yankees took the first two ALCS games by one run apiece. Bernie Williams ended the opener at Yankee Stadium with an extra-inning walk-off homer, and New York came from behind in Game 2. Boston and Pedro Martinez answered with a 13-1 Game 3 rout at Fenway Park, handing the Yankees their only defeat of that postseason after five runs in two innings off Roger Clemens. New York then won the next two games in Boston, claimed the pennant and swept Atlanta in the World Series.
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2003 ALCS: Yankees over Red Sox. Boston stole home-field edge with a Game 1 win behind Tim Wakefield, but New York recovered with victories in Games 2 and 3. The third game revisited Pedro Martinez against Clemens, with Clemens winning a one-run decision.
The Red Sox forced Game 7 by winning Game 6. They struck first in the deciding game on a two-run Trot Nixon homer off Clemens and a Kevin Millar solo shot, two of Boston’s 12 homers in the series. New York rallied with three runs in the eighth against Martinez to force extra innings. Mariano Rivera threw three commanding innings, and Aaron Boone ended it in the 11th by launching Wakefield’s first knuckleball for a walk-off home run.
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2004 ALCS: Red Sox over Yankees. Boston’s revenge came with a comeback no club had ever completed from a 3-0 postseason deficit. The Yankees entered as AL East champions; the Red Sox came in as the Wild Card team.
Mike Mussina opened Game 1 with six perfect innings before Boston finally broke through in the seventh, but New York survived a late seven-run Boston rally. The Yankees beat Martinez in Game 2, then rolled to a 19-8 Game 3 win at Fenway Park.
In Game 4, New York carried a one-run lead into the ninth with its All-Star closer on the mound. Dave Roberts stole a crucial base, Bill Mueller tied the game with a single, and David Ortiz hit a two-run, 12th-inning walk-off homer. Ortiz, who won ALCS MVP honors, drove in the Game 5 winner with a walk-off single in the 14th.
Curt Schilling supplied seven innings of one-run work in Game 6 despite an injured ankle and the famously bloodied sock, while Boston used a four-run fourth inning to win. The Red Sox then scored six times over the first two innings of Game 7, highlighted by Johnny Damon’s grand slam, and won 10-3. Boston advanced to the World Series and ended an 86-year championship drought, its first title since 1918.
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2018 ALDS: Red Sox over Yankees. It took 14 years after the 2003-04 ALCS meetings for the rivals to find each other again in October. Both clubs had won at least 100 games, the first time they had done so in the same season. Boston had hired Alex Cora and added J.D. Martinez; New York had brought in Aaron Boone and acquired Stanton.
The Yankees beat Oakland in the Wild Card Game to reach Boston, whose franchise-record 108 regular-season wins had delivered the AL East title. After the teams split the opening two games at Fenway, the Red Sox pulled away. Boston scored 15 runs off Yankees starters in 17 innings across the four games, a 7.94 ERA, and took early leads in each of its three victories.
Game 3 at Yankee Stadium became the defining blowout: Boston led 10-0 on its way to a 16-1 win. Every Red Sox starter recorded a hit, Brock Holt completed the first postseason cycle in Major League history, and Nathan Eovaldi worked seven innings while allowing one run. Boston then beat Houston and Los Angeles to capture its fourth championship in 14 seasons, following titles in 2004, 2007, 2013 and 2018.
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2021 AL Wild Card Game: Red Sox 6, Yankees 2. The final season of the one-game Wild Card format brought the teams together at Fenway after matching 92-70 records. Boston hosted because it held a 10-9 advantage in the season series.
Fenway’s Green Monster played a starring role. Giancarlo Stanton hit a rocket with two outs in the first that stayed in the park for a single, and Nathan Eovaldi struck out Joey Gallo to end the inning. Xander Bogaerts then homered off Gerrit Cole for a 2-0 lead, Kyle Schwarber added a solo shot in the third, and Cole’s night soon ended.
Anthony Rizzo’s sixth-inning homer got New York on the board. After Aaron Judge reached on an infield hit, Stanton drove another ball high off the Monster. Boston handled the carom cleanly and threw out Judge at home. Gallo popped out to end the Yankees’ final major chance.
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2025 AL Wild Card Series: Yankees over Red Sox, 2-1. The rivals met for the first time in the best-of-three Wild Card Series format, which debuted in 2020 and became permanent in 2022. Boston took Game 1 behind Garrett Crochet, who threw 7 2/3 innings of one-run ball and struck out 11. Crochet and closer Aroldis Chapman combined for 13 strikeouts, no walks and one run allowed in a Boston win despite only three runs of offensive support.
The Yankees leveled the series with a 4-3 victory in Game 2. Ben Rice’s two-run homer gave New York a first-inning spark, and with the game tied in the eighth, Austin Wells delivered the go-ahead RBI single.
Then came Cam Schlittler’s first postseason start. The Yankees rookie worked eight scoreless innings in the winner-take-all Game 3, striking out 12 without issuing a walk. No pitcher in Major League postseason history had previously put up that exact line. New York scored all four of its runs in the fourth inning and advanced, becoming the third club to win a Wild Card Series after dropping Game 1, following the 2020 Athletics and Padres.
Another turn in the rivalry
Now the Yankees have another home series against Boston, and another chance for the current clubhouse to leave its own mark on a matchup shaped by Dent’s improbable Fenway homer, Boone’s extra-inning swing, Ortiz’s October heroics and Schlittler’s scoreless breakthrough.
The old rivalry does not need much help finding a pulse in October. This time, it arrives with the Yankees holding the season-series edge and a familiar opponent walking back into Yankee Stadium.
