Yankees pitcher Dellin Betances is Wednesday’s Box-Toppers Player of the Day in the American League Wild Card Game.
Betances struck out three over two scoreless innings, allowing no hits and no walks, picking up the win, in the 7-2 win over the Athletics.
Betances had a Box-Toppers game score of +5.0, which was the same as Yankees starting pitcher Luis Severino (4IP 2H 0R 4BB 7K ND). Usually, Severino would have won Player of the Game honors over Betances since he had more innings pitched—four vs. two. But Betances won Player of the Game in this instance on a tiebreaker because he earned the win while Severino had a no-decision.
As the starter, Severino needed to pitch five innings to qualify for the win. Since he did not, the next pitcher to exit with the lead, regardless of number of innings pitched, would qualify for the win. And Wednesday, that was Betances.
Betances had 4.0 Box-Toppers points in 2018, 244th among all players, 61st among AL pitchers, sixth among AL closers and fifth among AL middle relievers. (Betances earned Player of the Game honors in 2018 twice as a closing pitcher and twice as a middle reliever.)
The Yankees now face the Red Sox in the best-of-five AL Division Series beginning Friday in Boston. The Red Sox are Box-Toppers top-ranked team with 143.6 Box-Toppers points.
The Yankees rank second in overall Box-Toppers team rankings, behind only the Red Sox, with its players accumulating 135.2 Box-Toppers points in 2018.
The Athletics are now eliminated from the postseason. They rank eighth with 120.8 points, fifth among AL teams and the lowest-ranked AL team to qualify for the postseason.
The Athletics used an “opening” pitcher Wednesday rather than a usual starter. Liam Hendriks, normally a reliever, pitched the first inning and gave way to relievers—the Athletics ended up using six total pitchers.
Hendriks did not fare well with a Box-Toppers game score of -4.0 (1IP H 2R BB K L), giving up a home run to Aaron Judge. However, Lou Trivino, who relieved Hendriks, kept the Yankees in check and had the best Box-Toppers game score among Athletics players of +5.0 (3IP H 0R BB 4K ND).
About Box-Toppers—Box-Toppers tracks who most helps their team win the most games. Using standard box score statistics, Box-Toppers uses a simple formula to determine a Player of the Game for each Major League Baseball game played. That player is the person who contributed most to his team’s win. In regular season games, players earn 1.0 Box-Toppers point for being named Player of the Game and can earn bonus points for being Player of the Day or top player or batter in their league for the day.
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Top player from AL Wild Card Game
| BTG | Game | Player | AB | R | H | BI | IP | H | R | ER | BB | K | |
| +5.0 | NYY 7, OAK 2 | Dellin Betances (W, 1‑0) | ‑ | ‑ | ‑ | ‑ | 2.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 |