For the second straight night, Boston Red Sox manager Chad Tracy pulled a starting pitcher earlier than some expected during the best-of-three American League wild-card series versus the rival New York Yankees. 

For the second straight evening, Tracy's gamble went poorly for a Red Sox team that ultimately completed a short postseason journey this fall. 

Why Chad Tracy repeated his Game 1 tactic

Following the Red Sox's 9-2 loss to the Yankees that eliminated Boston from the playoffs on Wednesday night, Red Sox ace and AL Cy Young contender Sonny Gray made it known that he wasn't thrilled that he was yanked from the game after he had thrown just 70 pitches through 4.2 innings of work. Tracy seemed not to regret the call while speaking with reporters following his club's defeat.

"We're trailing," Tracy explained, per Phillip Martinez of SNY. "We're struggling to score runs. And when you get in spots where struggling to score runs and you're already trailing, you feel like you've got to be aggressive and go. So they're getting back to the top part of the lineup. They get a couple of hits against them. See if you can put it out. And if you can put it out, you know, kind of lined up to where we want it to go. And that just didn't work."

Specifically, Boston was down 1-0 when Tracy replaced Gray with left-hander Erik Miller to face left-handed outfielder Cody Bellinger. Bellinger then produced an RBI single to give the hosts a 2-0 lead, which sparked both the Yankees players watching from the dugout and the crowd in the Bronx that was waiting to explode. 

The previous night, Tracy pulled Payton Tolle in favor of Miller after Tolle had tossed 83 pitches. Miller then gave up a solo home run to slugger and designated hitter Ben Rice.

Chad Tracy was going to live and die with his bullpen

Tracy made it clear following the season-ending loss that he was always going to trust his bullpen in a win-or-go-home situation. 

"With [Garrett Crochet], [Garrett Whitlock] and [Aroldis Chapman] towards the back end there, and they were able to string a bunch of hits, and we couldn't stop the bleeding there," Tracy added during his postgame comments. "It was pretty obvious that we were going to be aggressive in using that group. Like I said, they swung the bats. Didn't work out."

The combination of Crochet and Whitlock surrendered seven runs, six of which were scored in the bottom of the sixth inning, as the Yankees pulled away for what became a lopsided victory. As for Tracy and Gray, they may spend portions of the offseason wondering what could have been had Boston starters been given longer leashes at Yankee Stadium.