BOSTON — Baseball’s biggest house of cards can be described in two words: October health.
You can catch every break and rest every ailment in September to put your contender in optimal condition for the postseason. Alas, winning the championship requires the playing of games, and folks oftentimes get hurt in those games.
Hence this long-awaited return to Yankees-Red Sox postseason action kicked off with a notable diversion of fortunes:
Chris Sale looked healthy, and Aaron Hicks didn’t.
Sale shut down the Yankees, the underrated Hicks departed with right hamstring tightness and the Red Sox bullpen bent without breaking as the Yankees lost American League Division Series Game 1 by a 5-4 margin Friday night at Fenway Park, falling into a 1-0 hole in this best-of-five cage match.