The Red Sox are in a very different place than when they last played the Yankees in New York

Was it really just eight months ago that Yankee Stadium served as the staging grounds for a playoff matchup that rekindled memories of heavyweight clashes across generations? As the Red Sox and Yankees prepare for their first meeting in New York of this season on Friday, that relatively recent past feels unimaginably distant.

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Despite the loss of Aaron Judge, who was diagnosed with a stress fracture of his rib cage on Thursday and is likely out until August, the Yankees look like the standard-setter in the American League. Though a half-game behind the Rays in the AL East standings, the Yankees lead the league in both offense (5.1 runs per game) and pitching (3.6 runs per game).

Cohasset’s Ben Rice (.300/393/.638 with 17 homers) has been one of the foremost offensive forces in the AL this year. Cody Bellinger is once again thriving with the Yankees. Walpole’s Cam Schlittler (7-3, 1.89 ERA) has been the most dominant pitcher in the AL. Gerrit Cole (2.00 ERA in three starts) is back from Tommy John surgery and showing flashes of returning to elite form. The star-level performances are far-reaching.

The Red Sox, meanwhile, have fallen so far from last year’s postseason berth that the series against the Yankees was barely acknowledged at Fenway Park on Thursday. With an 8-2 loss to the Orioles, the Sox became further submerged at the bottom of the AL East, their 26-35 record lagging 10½ games behind the Yankees and 11 behind the Rays in the standings.

Against that backdrop, no one discussed the idea of a faceoff against the Yankees as a measuring stick. The Red Sox have experienced enough derailments that their attention is more focused on self-examination than comparisons to a team that has vastly outplayed them to this point in 2026.

Thursday added to the sense of a crumbling Red Sox roster. The five-inning, eight-run yield of Brayan Bello convinced the Sox to demote the righthander to Triple-A Worcester after the loss to the Orioles – a startling turn of events for a pitcher in the third season of a six-year, $55 million deal.

For the Sox, Bello added to an alarming pattern of players identified as cornerstones who – through performance, injury, or both – have fallen shockingly short of expectations. Bello will join Kristian Campbell (who left Thursday’s WooSox game with tightness in his side) as players signed to early-career, long-term deals who are now trying to re-establish themselves in the minors.

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Meanwhile, Garrett Crochet — who looked invincible in Game 1 of last year’s Wild Card Series — headlines a list of highly compensated Red Sox who are on the injured list. Between Crochet (IL), Trevor Story (IL), Roman Anthony (IL), Patrick Sandoval (IL), Garrett Whitlock (IL), Kutter Crawford (IL), Bello (Triple-A), and Campbell (Triple-A), the Sox have roughly $100 million of their payroll (as calculated for luxury tax purposes) that won’t be on the 26-man roster that spends the weekend in New York.

It’s still possible that the series will offer intriguing theater. The reception of Sox starter — and ex-Yankee — Sonny Gray when he takes the mound on Friday could be particularly colorful, given some offseason volleys between the pitcher and his former team.

Gray spent 1½ unhappy seasons in New York in 2017 (after the Yankees acquired him in a trade) and 2018, going 15-16 with a 4.51 ERA before the Yankees traded him in January 2019. When the Sox landed Gray in a trade this winter, he wasted no time taking shots at his former club upon his introduction.

“I never wanted to go [to New York] in the first place,” Gray said in December. “It feels good to me to go to a place now where, you know what, it’s easy to hate the Yankees, right? . . . It’s easy to go out and have that rivalry and go into it with full force, full steam ahead. I like the challenge.”

Now, Gray’s return to Yankee Stadium — where his 6.06 ERA is his worst in any park where he’s made at least six career starts — will offer Yankees fans an easily identified target for their ire. And perhaps the elevated energy and animosity surrounding Gray will awaken a Sox team that has held its own on the road this year.

Still, the possibility of that somewhat contrived drama is far removed from the breathless, theatrical atmosphere that existed last postseason – a time that now seems remote.

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