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Yankees stomp Red Sox, 8-3, in crucial battle at Fenway

BOSTON — The Yankees would like to make this weekend their last trip here of the year. Friday night Gleyber Torres and Giancarlo Stanton made that pretty clear.

In what many expect to be a preview of the American League wild-card game, the Yankees crushed Nathan Eovaldi and the Red Sox, 8-3, at Fenway Park.

It was a good start to this do-or-die stretch. Stanton crushed his 32nd homer of the season and drove in four runs on the night. He’s driven in 14 runs in his last 12 games and has 16 home runs since Aug. 3. Torres hit his eighth home run of the season in the seventh, his fourth against the Red Sox. Torres had three hits on the night.

The Yankees (87-67) went into Friday night’s game with a one-game lead over the Blue Jays for the final American League wild-card spot. That means if the playoffs started with those standings, the Red Sox would host the Yankees on Oct. 5 for the wild-card game.

This was just the Yankees’ second win in Fenway this season, they have to take at least one more of the two remaining games here to have a realistic chance at just clinching that playoff spot, let alone look to pass the Red Sox and host that wild-card game.

They head to Toronto on Monday for three against the Blue Jays, who they are 6-10 against this season, before finishing the season in the Bronx against the Rays, who they’ve gone 7-9 against this season.

“They’re all important. We desperately want to go out and play well, and hopefully we’re shaking hands at the end of the day, but win or lose the ball game tonight, we got a more important one tomorrow and each day,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “These are all super important. It’s down to the wire, we’re neck and neck, we’re playing the teams that are fighting for the same thing. So we just have to play well. And then hopefully, if we do that, the results take care of themselves.”

Well, if the Yankees hit like they were built to, then it will take care of itself. That’s what happened Friday.

Friday was the Yankees’ 16th straight game with a home run, their 10th in that span with multiple homers. This was only the 20th time this season the Yankees had scored at least eight runs. It was just their second win at Fenway this season and the first time they scored more than four runs.

They teed off on Nathan Eovaldi from the start. DJ LeMahieu and Anthony Rizzo led off with singles and scored on Aaron Judge’s double and Stanton’s groundout, respectively, before the Red Sox recorded an out. Torres’ single scored Judge to give Cole a 3-0 lead to work with.

In the third, the Yankees bats did what they rarely have done this season: they added on. Rizzo led off with a double and the Red Sox walked Judge only to have Stanton crush a homer into right-center field.

Eovaldi lasted just 2 2/3 innings, allowing seven runs on seven hits. He walked two and did not strike out a batter. In fact, of the 59 pitches he threw on Friday night, Eovaldi had just three swings and misses.

Gerrit Cole held onto that lead for five innings. He allowed three runs on five hits over six innings pitched. He walked three and struck out six.

He held the Red Sox hitless through the first three innings until J.D. Martinez’s two-out double in the fourth. He retired the next four, but got in trouble in the sixth. Enrique Hernandez and Kyle Schwarber led off with back-to-back singles, setting up Rafael Devers’ three-run homer around the Pesky Pole in right field. It was Devers’ third home run off Cole this season.

Cole had lost both his previous starts in Fenway this season, pitching to a 5.06 ERA in those appearances. He never had run support like this, however.

Clay Holmes and Wandy Peralta gave the Yankees two scoreless innings and Chad Green worked around a one-out walk and closed it out in the ninth.