Giancarlo Stanton hit a two-out grand slam in the eighth inning on Saturday evening leading the New York Yankees to a 5-3 win over the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. New York and Boston are now dead even for the top American League wild card.
Kevin Plawecki hit a solo homerun in the third inning, and Kyle Shwarber scored on a wild pitch in the fifth and Boston had a 2-0 lead. Nick Pivetta, who had a strong outing, ran into trouble in the sixth. With one out, Gio Urshela singled and Brett Gardner hit a sharp double down the right field line. Hansel Robles came into pitch, and his first offering was wild and Urshela scored to cut it to 2-1. Tanner Houck came out of the pen in the seventh and walked both Stanton and Joey Gallo to lead off the inning. Houck was able to work out of it when Gleyber Torres hit into a double play, and Gary Sanchez struck out swinging. Houck started the eighth solidly by striking out Rougned Odor and Urshela, before walking Gardner and Aaron Judge. Darwinzon Hernandez came on and hit Anthony Rizzo with a pitch to load the bases. On the very next pitch, Stanton hit one well over the monster in left center field for a 5-2 advantage with his 33rd homerun of the season. Bobby Dalbec got the Red Sox a bit closer with a one-out solo homer off Aroldis Chapman in the bottom of the ninth inning. Plawecki was then hit by a pitch to put the tying run on base, but Chapman got the save by striking out Jose Iglesias and getting Kike Hernandez to groundout to end the game.
Pivetta in his no decision only allowed one run on three hits with no walks and seven strikeouts in 5.1 innings. Robles got his 17th hold of the season, while Houck (1-5) was tagged in the loss and Hernandez was pegged with a blown save. Plawecki was the only Boston batter with multiple hits with two. Luis Severino (1-0) pitched 2.0 innings of hitless and scoreless relief to pick up the win, with Chapman getting his 29th save. Nestor Cortes started for New York, and Stanton had two hits and the huge four RBI on the grand slam to lead his team to the victory. The Sox and Yankees, both now 88-67, finish the series on Sunday night baseball at 7:08 p.m. with Eduardo Rodriguez (11-8, 4.97 ERA) starting for Boston against Jordan Montgomery (6-6, 3.55) for the Yankees.
