Sonny Gray did not tiptoe into the rivalry.
Meeting Boston media after his trade from the St. Louis Cardinals to the Boston Red Sox, Gray smiled and leaned right into the history between his new team and his old one.
“It feels good to me to go to a place where it’s easy to hate the Yankees,” he said, according to Boston Globe reporter Tim Healey.
Gray also made a point of saying his time with the New York Yankees changed him for the better, calling himself a better pitcher and even a better husband because of that experience.
For Red Sox fans, that’s catnip. For Yankees fans, it’s a familiar whine. Gray really was a bad fit for the Bronx, despite that some, including Gray’s former Yankees teammate, claim he was just mishandled.
The splits from 2018 show that Gray did not pitch well in the Bronx. During his time with the New York Yankees, Gray posted a 7.71 ERA at Yankee Stadium and a 3.62 ERA on the road, finishing his stint in New York with a 4.85 ERA overall.
That split helped cement the narrative that he “couldn’t pitch in New York.”
But former Yankees catcher Erik Kratz has been pushing a different version of the story. On Foul Territory and in later radio hits, Kratz said Gray’s biggest issue was a clash with then-pitching coach Larry Rothschild, who wanted Gray to lean more on his slider while Gray trusted his curveball and more feel-based pitch calling. Kratz described it as a “contradiction of pitch usage” that left Gray uncomfortable and less effective.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone flatly denied Gray's version.
Since the trade out of the Bronx, Gray has turned in multiple All-Star seasons, a career 3.58 ERA over 1,900-plus innings and a strikeout rate in the mid-20s, with advanced metrics like FIP and xFIP consistently painting him as a top-of-the-rotation arm.
Now he lands in Boston as a 36-year-old anchor.
The Red Sox acquired him from St. Louis after a 2025 season in which he went 14–8 with a 4.28 ERA and 201 strikeouts in 180 2/3 innings, and they reworked his deal so he’s guaranteed $41 million through 2027 while the Cardinals eat a big chunk of the cost.
So yes, Gray just gave the rivalry a fresh quote that will live on every time he faces the Yankees. If Boston lets him be the pitcher he believes he is, that “easy to hate the Yankees” line could be very relevant in October.
