Garrett Crochet walked off the mound, and as he crossed the first-base line, the lights in Yankee Stadium went out, plunging him into total darkness. It had been five months since Boston’s ace had wound up, and two years since he’d come on in relief. This was to be his moment: He was to be Boston’s deus ex machina, the hero come to save the day, and always in the nick of time. His fastball scraped 97, sizzling with adrenaline and singlemindedness. He would put out the fire left by Erik Miller, and keep this a winnable, if not winning, game.

Perhaps the Crochet of last year, the idealized form, could have done it. If he had, it wouldn’t have looked much different, at least before ball met bat. But Crochet and thousands of Red Sox fans discovered that with very few exceptions, no player in all of baseball can deny their opponent every opportunity to roll their own dice.

Crochet’s first strikeout since April skittered away from the plate, and Jones was barely able to scamper to first. Then, reading Crochet’s patient leg kick, Jones was able to take second and then third on Adley Rutschman’s wild throw. George Lombard Jr. reached outside the strike zone to flick a ball to right for a single; Jazz Chisholm Jr. pulled a cutter on the outside black past a diving Nick Sogard. Caleb Durbin failed to field a well-placed bunt; Willson Contreras cannily fielded another one by Ryan McMahon in foul territory to save a run, only to watch him squib one into no-man’s land to score it anyway. Lights, curtains. There would be no heroism in Boston Wednesday evening. Behind his back, Garrett Whitlock gave up one of those perfunctory right-field flies, the only-in-New-York kind, to cement the final score, and cut to credits.