The American League East should be baseball’s finest pennant race this season, with three to five teams battling for a title that ended last year with the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Yankees each landing on 94 wins.
And now a most unlikely character has emerged to stir the pot.
Isiah Kiner-Falefa played for the Yankees from 2022-23, joined the Blue Jays at the 2025 trade deadline and played a key role in their run to the World Series. Now, he’s a Boston Red Sox, and did not hold back in propping up his new team and tweaking the Yankees.
The Blue Jays won the division over the Yankees on a tiebreaker, then awaited the winner of a Boston-New York wild-card series in the ALDS. And Kiner-Falefa didn’t hesitate to say who the Blue Jays preferred to play in the ALDS.
‘We definitely felt (Boston) was a tougher matchup for us,’ Kiner-Falefa told reporters upon arriving Tuesday, Feb. 10 at the Red Sox’s spring training camp in Fort Myers, Fla. ‘Once we saw the other team, we were a lot happier.
‘It was definitely a topic.”
The Blue Jays proved as much, dispatching the Yankees 3-1 in the ALDS. Kiner-Falefa said the Red Sox proved themselves a far scrappier team than the Yankees, and he feared the presence of ace Garrett Crochet could tip the balance of the series.
That didn’t leave his old boss, Yankees manager Aaron Boone, in too cheery a mood.
‘I guess he was right,’ Boone said of Kiner-Falefa in his first spring press conference Wednesday, Feb. 11 in Tampa. ‘Little surprising to hear IKF say that.
‘But whatever, that’s fine.’
Kiner-Falefa does have a knack for attracting main character energy, given his .660 career OPS and status as a utility infielder. He fielded hateful messages from Blue Jays fans all winter after he was forced out at home representing the potential World Series-winning run in the ninth inning of Game 7.
Following instructions, Kiner-Falefa stayed close to the bag to avoid a back pick, then, he explained Feb. 10, was intent on breaking up a double play at home to ensure Ernie Clement – the Blue Jays’ hottest hitter at the time – got a chance to hit with two outs.
Kiner-Falefa did not see Dodgers second baseman Miguel Rojas slip after fielding the ball.
‘From my instinct, from where I was, I was initially just thinking, break up that double play right there and get our best, hottest hitter up at the time,’ says Kiner-Falefa. ‘It almost paid off. Ernie almost got the job done on the next one, but at the end of the day it’s just a great learning experience. And I’m ready to flip the page.’
Kiner-Falefa also wished he’d had a chance to explain that way back in November. But in the chaos of an 11-inning Game 7 loss, reporters did not approach him about the play and the controversy did not emerge until there was greater scrutiny on various angles of his forceout at home.
‘It blew up without me getting a proper interview, so I thought that was unfair,’ he says.
Now, he’s got a lot to say, and follows in Sonny Gray’s footsteps as former Yankees tweaking their old team now that they’re on Boston’s side of the rivalry.