The clock on the Red Sox clubhouse wall read 10:14 p.m. — approximately 10 minutes after the Red Sox finished off their 15-5 shellacking of the Yankees, or at least that's what it said on their uniform.
The clubhouse itself was devoid of players. It was just empty. A strange sight, to be sure.
And then you heard it ... the excited collective screaming from the showers, where the guys had assembled.
After an unbelievably frustrating season to this point, when you set season-highs for runs, hits (17), extra-base hits (10) and margin of victory to improve to 3-1 against New York this season and get back to .500 again, then, yes, let the good vibes out.
Now the Red Sox need to keep it up for about a the next week.
Let's be blunt.
The team the Yankees put on the Fenway Park lawn on Friday night to start their three-game set was ... garbage.
With no Aaron Judge (injured) around to make Aaron Boone's life manageable, the Yankees don't scare anyone remotely. Their lineup boasts just one player, someone named Billy McKinney, who is batting over .300 (9 hits in 29 at-bats). Anthony Rizzo is next at .265. Everyone else is .252 or worse. Josh Donaldson is batting .160 — and needed a tank over the Monster to get there.
Not exactly Jeter, Williams, Posada, O'Neil and Co.
Oh, and this Yankees team in the field makes the Red Sox look like they're stocked with Gold Glovers.
The Yankees' pitching is usually pretty good, but Domingo German spent Friday night getting lit up like a pinball machine with seven hits allowed — six for extra bases — in just two innings of work. They have Clarke Schmidt (?) who is 2-6, 4.70 ERA going in Game 2, and Luis Severino (0-1, 6.48) to cap it off.
You thought the Red Sox' roster with their payroll was bad? I mean, this is a complete joke for a Yankees team with the second-highest payroll in MLB.
Even with the Red Sox middling around .500, they were good enough to completely embarrass the Yankees by racing out to a 13-1 lead before ultimately winning in mercy-rule fashion in front of 37,086 — the fifth sellout of the season, and highest-paid attendance of the year, the Red Sox quickly pointed out.
For at least one night, the favorite chant of Red Sox fans was indeed correct. These Yankees ... are not good. And the Red Sox need to press on that issue.
It's time for the Red Sox to make quick work of these jokers the next two nights (well, with rain forecast for Saturday, maybe it's two on Sunday - and this time maybe Alex Cora doesn't throw Kenley Jansen in both games, just a thought) to sweep them back to New York and set the stage for some life in this baseball season.
Monday starts a road trip in Minnesota against the Twins, who are in first place in the AL Central but barely above .500. The White Sox are next, and they're 10 games below.
In short, the Red Sox are in the midst of 10 very winnable games, starting with the imposter Yankees, before the schedule stiffens up again with the Marlins, Blue Jays and Rangers.
It's now or never. The Red Sox entered the night five games back of the wild-card pace but could erase a lot of that in the next week. Get fat off this stretch, start feeling better about yourselves heading into a tougher stretch. Give yourself a chance to play for something.
Surely Cora can rally the troops and wake them up from their doldrums, right?
Maybe they can start by riding the flaming bat of Justin Turner, who has recorded multiple hits in five of his last seven games (.464 average).
In his first three at-bats Friday, Turner laced a double, a homer over the Monster and scorched a pitch into center field for a grand slam. Three at-bats, 10 total bases, six RBI. He became the fourth player in the history of the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry with six RBI in the first 3 innings of a game, according to ESPN Stats & Info: Graig Nettles (1976), Yogi Berra (1957), Walt Dropo (1950).
"Yeah, I mean, it's good to get the results," Turner said after the game. "I think the at-bats have been pretty good even though we haven't been scoring a ton of runs. Been taking good at-bats, hit a lot of balls hard, just right at guys and tonight more quality at-bats and found a lot of grass. Obviously, it helps for the confidence and offense to see the results. You can preach process, process, process all you want but it's human nature to want to get the result as well."
The Red Sox can't let this be a one-off like they did after Atlanta, when some really bright guy thought that would the be start of something big ... and then Boston went home against St. Louis and was swept by the awful Cardinals, part of a stretch in which Boston lost 8 of 12.
These guys are going to get hot at some point, right? There's no better time than right now, against this part of the schedule.
The Sox need to give their fans something to yell about. Now is the time.