Sonny Gray says it will be ‘easy to hate the Yankees’ with Red Sox

It didn’t take long for Sonny Gray to reintroduce himself to the Yankees–Red Sox rivalry.

Speaking for the first time since he was traded to Boston last week, Gray came with fighting words about the Yankees, with whom he famously struggled during a two-year tenure from 2017-18.

“What did factor into my decision to come to Boston [is that] it feels good to me to go to a place now where, you know what, it’s easy to hate the Yankees, right?” Gray, 36, said Tuesday during an introductory Zoom call.

“It’s easy to go out and have that rivalry and go into it with full force, full steam ahead. I like the challenge.”

The Yankees envisioned Gray as a frontline starter when they acquired him from the Oakland A’s before the 2017 trade deadline.

But Gray went just 15-16 with 4.51 ERA over 41 appearances, including 34 starts, during his 1 ½ seasons with the Yankees, including a 4.90 ERA in 2018.

After being traded to the Cincinnati Reds before the 2019 season, Gray told The Athletic the Yankees had wanted him to throw his slider more often, rather than his bread-and-butter curveball.

Gray has largely excelled in the seven years since leaving the Yankees, pitching to a 3.51 ERA from 2019-25 with the Reds, Minnesota Twins and St. Louis Cardinals. He was the runner-up for the 2023 American League Cy Young Award with the Twins.

“New York, it just wasn’t a good situation for me,” Gray said Tuesday. “It wasn’t a great setup for me and my family. I never wanted to go there in the first place. … It just didn’t really work for who I am.”

At his introductory press conference at Yankee Stadium in 2018, Gray said he “couldn’t be happier to be here today.”

And while that sentiment did not last, Gray said Tuesday that he did “appreciate my time there.”

“I’ve been a better baseball player, husband, everything from having that experience and going through that,” said Gray, who was 14-8 with a 4.28 ERA with St. Louis last season.

“I just feel like I learned so much after going through that. When I immediately left, I was just like, you know what? I just wasn’t myself.”

Gray is the latest pitcher to add fire to the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry.

In June, Red Sox rookie Hunter Dobbins told the Boston Herald he would “retire” before signing a contract with the Yankees. In that same interview, Dobbins said the Yankees drafted his father twice — a claim that later came into question.

And in October, Yankees rookie Cam Schlittler hurled eight scoreless innings in a winner-take-all Game 3 victory over Boston in their Wild Card playoff series.

Schlittler — who hails from Walpole, Mass. — later said he was extra motivated during that outing after finding out trash-targeting Red Sox fans had targeted his mother online.

“I think they learned their lesson,” Schlittler said at the time.

The Yankees are set to face the Red Sox in Boston from April 21-23, and then host their century-old rival from June 5-7 in the Bronx.