Even in victory, the Boston Red Sox sob story is literally nauseating

The Boston Red Sox continued their season-long (well, really seasons-long) dominance of the New York Yankees in Game 1 of their AL Wild Card series on Tuesday night, riding some timely late offense and eight dominant innings from starter Garrett Crochet to a 3-1 win. They're now one more victory away from a spot in the ALDS, and their ace sure seems like one of the biggest playoff risers in the entire sport.

You'd think all of the above would be more than enough grist for the narrative mill — a dramatic comeback against a hated rival, a celebration in enemy territory, one of the best pitching performances in postseason history. But no: The Red Sox want you to know that this wasn't just any win. This was their very own flu game!

At least, according to ESPN's Buster Olney, who reported on his podcast on Wednesday morning that Crochet, Alex Bregman, Trevor Story and more key Red Sox were battling "some type of virus" during Game 1. Just what kind of virus remains unclear, but Bregman left little to the imagination: "Puking was part of it."

Boston has earned the right to wax poetic, I suppose. To the victors go the rights to self-mythologize or something like that. But ... come on, guys. We're all adults here. This wasn't Michael Jordan looking like he was about to pass out while leading the Chicago Bulls in the NBA Finals — this is a baseball writer desperate for a story and a team all too willing to give him one.

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Red Sox really going out of their way to create a heroic postseason narrative nobody needs

Who knows how Crochet was feeling on the inside during his start, but from the outside he seemed exactly like the guy who will likely finish second in AL Cy Young voting this year. He was sitting in the high 90s all night, his cutter and sweeper were both sharp as ever and he even ended his outing with a triple-digits fastball to strike out his 11th and final batter.

He basically told Alex Cora he wasn't coming out of the game, and he was hanging out on a tablet in the dugout after finally being removed for Aroldis Chapman. Heck, he spent his first minutes in the clubhouse on his phone:

Doesn't seem like the illness was all that much of an issue, then! None of which takes away from how impressive Boston was on Tuesday, to be clear: They once again refused to blink, getting a monstrous performance from their ace to bide their time until the Yankees, as they always seem to do in this rivalry of late, made a critical error at a critical time. They were the better, sturdier team, and they richly deserved that win.

We don't need to do this, though. Sure, it makes for a nice story, but we don't need to pretend like their performance was in any meaningful way hindered by how they were feeling physically. They were clearly well enough to take the field and do the things we're used to seeing them do, and it only became a story after the game ended and everyone had a deadline to hit.