Isiah Kiner-Falefa has been on both sides of this rivalry, and he was not interested in dressing up what happened to the Boston Red Sox this week against the New York Yankees.

“Uncompetitive. We got boat-raced,” the Red Sox utility man said after Wednesday's 9-2 loss completed a two-game Wild Card Series sweep at Yankee Stadium. “To lose in the Wild Card is unacceptable.”

The numbers support every word. New York outscored Boston 18-2 across the series, and the Red Sox hit .117 as a team, going 7-for-60 with 18 strikeouts over 18 innings. Fifteen of the Yankees' 18 runs were charged to Boston's bullpen.

Game 1 was the more lopsided of the two. Cam Schlittler, a Walpole, Massachusetts native, struck out 10 over 6 1/3 scoreless innings, and Ben Rice, who grew up in Cohasset, went 4-for-5 with two homers, including an eighth-inning grand slam, and six RBIs. The 9-0 final was New York's largest shutout postseason win since the 1960 World Series.

Article Continues Below

Game 2 followed the same pattern. Sonny Gray kept Boston within reach before the Yankees scored six in the sixth, capped by Cody Bellinger's three-run homer off Garrett Whitlock. Willson Contreras ended a 26-inning postseason scoreless streak with a solo shot earlier that inning, and Nick Sogard added one in the seventh, but the margin was long settled.

The offensive collapse did not appear from nowhere. Boston finished September last in the majors with a .219 batting average while ranking near the bottom in on-base percentage and slugging, dragging a once-promising season to a flat ending.

Kiner-Falefa's perspective carries an extra layer. He spent 2022 and 2023 with the Yankees before stops in Toronto and Pittsburgh, joining Boston this season, so he knows exactly what the other clubhouse looked like Wednesday night.

For the Red Sox, it is a second straight October ended by New York, following last year's three-game Wild Card defeat. The Yankees move on to face the top-seeded Rays in a Division Series beginning Saturday.