Not much to play for as the Boston Red Sox move into their final series of the regular season. The focus now is resting players and preparing for the postseason which starts next Friday.
The Yankees on the other hand were still trying to figure out if they would host the Wildcard game, the magic number was down to one coming into to Boston and after a 11-6 win the Yanks have secured homefield advantage for the one game wildcard against Oakland on Wednesday.
Brian Johnson would take the mound for the Sox as he faced off against JA Happ. Both pitchers would cruise through the first two innings until Johnson would give up a long ball to Gary Sanchez in the third to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead, followed later in same inning by a Giancarlo Stanton single to make it 2-0
Yanks would follow that up with a single that scored one, and a double that would score two more in the fourth to make the score 5-0. Staying in the 4th, the Yanks broke it open making it 8-0 on an Aaron Hicks three run homer.
The sixth inning is when the Sox offense got going, with the bases loaded and Steve Pearce at the plate. Pearce would launch one off Happ down the left field line clearing the wall for a grandslam to cut the deficit in half at 8-4.
Yanks would answer right back on a homer by Luke Voit to make the lead 9-4, followed by an error by Xander Boegarts that would score a run making it 10-4.
Aaron Judge joined in on the scoring barrage in the 8th when he would hit his first homer since coming off the DL to give the Yanks an 11-4 lead. The fourth Yankee homer of the night also tied the 1997 Seattle Mariners team for the most home runs in a season with 264.
Sox would get one back in the bottom half of the 8th when Steve Pearce would get his 5th RBI of the night on a single to cut the deficit to 11-5. Xander Bogaerts forced in a run in the ninth with a bases loaded walk off NY reliever Zach Britton to end the scoring. Andrew Benintendi also had two hits for Boston, while Johnson (4-5) suffered the loss allowing two runs on three hits in 3.0 innings. Haap (17-6) earned the win allowing four runs on four hits in 6.0 innings for NY. Judge, Hicks, Stanton, and Sanchez all had two hits a piece.
The Sox and Yanks will square off in Game 2 tomorrow where Nathan Eovaldi will face Lance Lynn on FOX at 1:05pm.
