Boston pitcher Chris Sale gets ready to throw a pitch at Fenway Park against the Los Angeles Dodgers. The left hander took his 10th loss as he was beaten by the New York Yankees on Sunday night. Photo courtesy of Delaney Gardner
The New York Yankees hit a pair of two run homeruns, and got a solid pitching start from Domingo German on Sunday night to salvage the final game of a four game series over Chris Sale and the Boston Red Sox 9-6 at Fenway Park in the national game of the week on Sunday Night baseball.
In a scoreless game in the third inning after a one out walk to Cameron Maybin, Austin Romine nailed a two run homer off Sale deep into the monster seats in left center to make it 2-0 NY. The Yankees would take advantage of another one out walk in the fourth, and this time Didi Gregorius nailed one deep into the right field seats to extend to a 4-0 advantage. Boston (59-48) got back within a pair though when Andrew Benintendi took German deep to right for a two run homer in the bottom of the fourth to cut it to 4-2. Gio Urshela came up with an RBI double that ended the night for Sale in the top of the sixth. Maybin added another with an RBI single that was also charged to the Sox starter.
The Sox cut it to three when JD Martinez hit an RBI groundout in the home half of the sixth. New York (67-38) put the game away on a misplay by the Boston defense in the seventh. With the bases loaded and one out, Gregorius hit one to shallow center field that was tracked down by Jackie Bradley Jr.. Luke Voit at first base got too far off the bag and should of been an easy double play by Bradley Jr., but his throw was errant and went into the Sox dugout allowing two runs to come across to make it 8-3 with one of the runs ending up as the game winner. The hosts had runners on first and second with noone out in the sixth, first and third with one out in the seventh, and the bases loaded with one out in the eighth but could only come up with a sacrifice fly RBI from Mookie Betts in the seventh. A wild pitch by reliever Marcus Walden allowed Maybin to score the last New York run of the night in the top of the eighth. Aroldis Chapman pitched the ninth in a non-save situation and allowed a walk and two hits including a two run single by Benintendi, but got two strikeouts including Michael Chavis to end the game.
Sale (5-10) ended up going 5.1 innings allowing six runs on five hits, with three walks and seven strikeouts in a losing effort. Walden allowed the only earned run out of the bullpen in 1.0 inning of work, as the two charged to Darwinzon Hernandez were unearned on the error in his 1.0 inning in the seventh. Colten Brewer and Heath Hembree combined for 1.2 innings of scoreless relief. Benintendi finished with three hits and four RBI, and Xander Bogaerts also added three hits. Edwin Encarnacion, Urshela, and Maybin all had two hits a piece for the Yankees. German improved to 13-2 allowing three runs on four hits, with one walk and nine strikeouts in 5.1 innings. Boston batted .474 with runners in scoring position in their wins over the first three games of the series, but was held to a .111 clip Sunday night (1-9) that included 0-3 over the final three innings.
The Red Sox after this past week of three games against Tampa Bay and four against New York get set to do the same this week. Boston opens up a three game set with the Rays at Fenway on Tuesday night at 7:10 p.m. The Sox send David Price to the mound against Charlie Morton for Tampa. On Friday they then open up a four game series at Yankee Stadium with a doubleheader scheduled Saturday. Boston ends Sunday one game out of the second Wild Card, and three games behind the first Wild Card team with another huge week of important games coming up along with the MLB trading deadline on Wednesday.
