NEW YORK — If recent history holds, the Red Sox find themselves in a prime spot entering Wednesday’s Game 2 of the Wild Card Series in the Bronx.

Boston’s 3-1 Game 1 win put the club a game away from a date with the Blue Jays in the ALDS. It also puts the Sox in position to continue a hard-to-believe trend. Since the best-of-three, all-in-one-ballpark Wild Card Series format began in 2022, all 12 teams who have won Game 1 have ended up winning the series. No club has come back to win two in a row after dropping Game 1. Ten of the 12 series have ended in a two-game sweep, with the 2024 Brewers (lost to the Mets) and 2022 Mets (lost to the Padres) serving as the only exception.

It’s a small sample size, sure, but clearly shows that the pressure is on the Yankees ahead of Wednesday’s 6:08 p.m. ET start in the Bronx.

“You want to be in the driver’s seat,” injured starter Lucas Giolito said late Tuesday. “A combination of Garrett (Crochet), Chappy (Aroldis Chapman) and our offense grinding at-bats, really solid defense today that put us in the driver’s seat. Now, we move on to tomorrow and go get another win.”

Giolito and Garrett Crochet, however, have intimate knowledge of an asterisk when it comes to the trend. In 2020, MLB expanded the playoffs to a temporary 16-team format after COVID shortened the season and tried out the best-of-three Wild Card format with eight pairings. (In 2021, the old one-game Wild Card Game — and 10-team — format was used for the final time before things changed for good in 2022 and MLB moved to 12 teams in the postseason).

In 2020, a White Sox team with Giolito and Crochet on its pitching staff won Game 1 against the Athletics, only to drop the next two games in Oakland and be eliminated. The Cardinals suffered a similar fate in San Diego, winning Game 1 before losing two in a row. Counting 2020, teams that win Game 1 are really 18-2 in the series — with 16 sweeps.

“Hopefully we can continue that,” said manager Alex Cora. “We have a tough one tomorrow again.”

Wednesday’s Game 2 will feature Brayan Bello, who is making his postseason debut, and lefty Carlos Rodón, also a member of the 2020 White Sox team that was bounced by Oakland. The Red Sox will likely use a similar righty-heavy lineup to the one they used against Max Fried in Game 1 with the hope they can chase Rodón early, then have left-handed hitters like Masataka Yoshida, Wilyer Abreu and Nathaniel Lowe match up against New York’s right-handed relievers. Another pitcher’s duel would surprise no one.

“Rodón has been amazing throughout this season,” said manager Alex Cora. “They are obviously going to have their left-handed hitters in the lineup. We have Brayan, who likes it here, pitched well throughout his career. I expect the game to be just like this one.”

Working in Boston’s advantage is that Bello, in five career starts (31 ⅓ innings at Yankee Stadium), has a 1.44 ERA. He has allowed just five earned runs and struck out 18 batters in the Bronx; on August 22, he struck out five and allowed three hits in seven shutout innings here.

“I feel like as soon as you put your step on the field, you feel the pressure from the fans, even when you are in the bullpen and when you go to the mound,” Bello said Tuesday. “For me nothing changed preparation-wise, but I feel like that extra pressure from the fans and from everybody it gets me going.

“Obviously super happy for the opportunity to start the game tomorrow here, to be the No. 2 starter. In this first series, obviously, I have been throwing a lot of big games here, but I feel like this one is going to be different.”

A Yankees win Wednesday night would set up a matchup of rookie starters in Boston’s Connelly Early and New York’s Cam Schlittler that is tentatively scheduled for 6:08 p.m. ET (but might be moved based on other results Wednesday). If the Red Sox win, they will advance to the ALDS, which begins in Toronto at 1:08 p.m. ET on Saturday. The Yankees are hoping to reverse history and live another day.

“We have been playing these type of games for a while now,” said manager Aaron Boone. “We have been playing with a lot on the line seemingly every single day. So tonight was a great baseball game that we just couldn’t get that final punch in. So we will be ready to go, and I expect us to come out and get one tomorrow.”

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