Ex-Yankees pitcher takes mound for Red Sox in battle of All-Star aces

Aces are wild Friday at Fenway Park.

The Yankees will send Gerrit Cole to the mound, with New York trailing Boston by two games in the American League Wild-Card race.

The Red Sox will counter with former Yankees pitcher Nathan Eovaldi.

Both Cole and Eovaldi represented the American League this summer at the All-Star Game. But it was a new experience for Eovaldi, who shouldered the burden of being the front man for the Red Sox rotation for most of the year until left-hander Chris Sale returned from Tommy John surgery.

Based on the numbers compiled by the Boston Globe, the Cole-Eovaldi matchup features two of the best pitchers in baseball.

Eovaldi sits atop the FanGraphs leaderboard with 5.5 WAR, slightly ahead of Cole (5.2 WAR, 15-8, 3.03).(Eovaldi) is tied for the AL lead in both starts of at least five innings (27) and outings of at least seven innings with no more than one run allowed (6). ... Baseball-Reference.com, which attempts to account for balls in play (adjusted for parks and defenses), has Eovaldi fourth in WAR (4.8), behind Robbie Ray (6.8), Cole (5.7), and Lance Lynn (5.0). Baseball Prospectus, which examines specific details not just of balls in play but also the quality of opposing hitters, parks, and weather, has Cole first (4.7), with Eovaldi fourth (3.4).

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Eovaldi made his MLB debut with the Dodgers in 2011. Los Angeles traded him to the Miami Marlins in 2012, who flipped him to the Yankees in 2014 along with Domingo German and Garrett Jones in exchange for David Phelps, Martin Prado and cash.

Eovaldi made 51 appearances over two seasons with the Yankees, going 23-11 with a 4.45 ERA. But New York released him after the 2016 season while he was recovering from Tommy John surgery.

Eovaldi resurfaced in 2018 with the Tampa Bay Rays, who traded him to the Red Sox as Boston marched toward the World Series. Eovaldi’s best game that postseason came in a losing effort, coming out of the bullpen in Game 3 as the last man standing to pitch more than six innings in relief against the Dodgers. Boston lost the game in 18 innings, but Eovaldi’s effort helped propel the Red Sox to its fourth World Series title in the 21st century.

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Mike Rosenstein may be reached at mrosenstein@njadvancemedia.com.