New York Yankees at Boston Red Sox: Series Recap

Game 1: 7/22/21, 7:10 PM (Boston wins 5-4)

Another late blown lead for New York as they throw their leads of 3-2 and 4-3 late. Starter Jordan Montgomery was exceptional as he threw 5.2 shutout innings only allowing 4 baserunners. Gleyber Torres would get the Yankees on the board in the 4th inning on an RBI groundout scoring Brett Gardner giving New York a 1-0 lead off Boston starter ,Tanner Huock. It would stay that way until the 7th, Lucas Leutge would come in to pitch and immediately get into some trouble. With 2 men on and 1 out, Lucas would get the ground ball he needed but 3rd baseman Tyler Wade had other ideas and decided to make an error that would load the bases, the next batter Enrique Hernandez would hit a sacrifice fly scoring Alex Verdugo tying the game. With 2 on and 2 out, Rafael Devers would come up and hit a single that he thought would drive in the go ahead run but a great cut off by Torres and throw to home plate nailed Bobby Dalbec scoring chance, keeping the game tied at 1.

We head to the 8th with former Yankee, Adam Ottavino, on the mound and he immediately gets into trouble, walking DJ LeMahieu and Brett Gardner bringing up Giancarlo Stanton who then popped an RBI single scoring DJ making it a 2-1 lead. Rougned Odor would drop a sac bunt, giving the Yanks 2 in scoring position with 1 out, Torres would come to bat and hit a deep fly ball to right field that was caught for a sac fly scoring Gardner again giving the Yankees a 3-1. Luis Cessa would toss an easy scoreless 8th inning and New York would go down in order in the 9th. The usual reliable Chad Green was not so reliable in this one. Zack Britton and Aroldis Chapman were unavailable. Green would get the 1st out then run into trouble, allowing back to back singles before picking up a very hard 2nd out, with 2 outs Hernandez again would drive a double to the gap scoring 2 and tying the game at 3 sending it to extras. With Matt Barnes on the mound for Boston things weren’t looking good, but thanks to the ghost runner at 2nd it was much easier especially with the runner being speedster Tyler Wade. DJ would groundout to the pitcher but Wade’s speed got him over the 3rd with 1 out, Gardner would drive him in via sac fly giving New York another 4-3 lead. Brooks Kriske (WHO???) would come in to try to close the deal, and he certainly did not do that. Boston didn’t have a hit in the inning and somehow won. Ghost runner Devers was on 2nd base, and 2 wild pitches later and the game was tied, Xander Bogaerts would draw a walk and 2 more wild pitches later, he’s on 3rd base with 0 outs… JD Martinez would strikeout swinging making it 1 out, Hunter Renfroe would walk it off in Boston with a game winning sac fly giving Boston a 5-4 win. Unbelievable. Kriske sucks and should never pitch again. He got the deserving loss and Barnes picked up a win.

Game 2: 7/23/21, 7:10 PM (Red Sox win 6-2)

The Yankees lose again to Boston. The bats got an early 1-0 lead, but did nothing the rest of the game. Gerrit Cole wasn’t great but he wasn’t awful, Boston hitters really worked him raising his pitch count. He gave up 3 runs over 5 laboring innings of work. Yanks scored in the 2nd on an RBI double by Gardner scoring Gary Sanchez. Cole was great through 4 innings entering the 5th with a shutout, but things unraveled fairly quickly. A single, followed by a ground-rule double would put runners at 2nd and 3rd with 1 out, bringing Bogaerts to the plate who hit a sac fly scoring a run, tying the game at 1, then a 2-run bomb by Devers would give Boston a 3-1 lead. Yankee bats stood quiet while Boston would tack on 3 more in the 7th. Nestor Cortes would induce back to back singles then yet again Devers would smash a 3-run homer, seemingly ending the game right there. New York would score a run in the final frame on a RBI double by Odor making it 6-2 Boston lead. Cole took the loss while Yacksel Rios would get the win.

Game 3: 7/24/21, 4:05 PM (Yankees win 4-3)

New York pulls off a comeback in the 8th inning as they take game 3 by a score of 4-3. Starter Jameson Tallion was excellent, he tossed 7 innings of 3 run ball while only 1 run being earned, he continued his dominance in the month of July. Boston starter Nathan Eovaldi was excellent as well, throwing 7.2 innings of 2 run ball. On paper, this is probably a game the Yankees shouldn’t win but they did. In the 1st, lead off hitter Hernandez would put his mark on the series again with a little league home run, it was a triple but thanks to an Odor error, he came around to score making that an unearned run but giving Boston a 1-0 lead. In the 2nd, Martinez led off with a double and would come around to score on a Kevin Plawecki double making it a 2-0 lead. Yanks would get 2 on and nobody out in the 3rd but fail to score due to a double play then strikeout unfortunately. In the bottom of the inning though, Jarren Duran would reach 2nd base on another error by Odor, his 2nd of the game. Duran would eventually come around to score on a Devers sac fly making it 3-0. All bats were quiet until the top of 8th, Estevan Florial would lead off with a double and Eovaldi would get the next 2 outs standing the runner on 2nd but some 2-out magic happened, Gardner would drive in Florial on a single cutting the deficit to 3-1. That would chase Eovaldi out of the game bringing in Ottavino who yet again wet the bed, Stanton would hit a ground rule double making it runners on 2nd and 3rd with 2 out, the hero Odor would drive both of them in with a double of his own tying the game at 3, Torres brings him in with a go ahead 2-out single making it 4-3 New York. Yankees had another runner on via hit by pitch and shockingly Torres and Greg Allen double stole putting runners at 2nd and 3rd still all with 2 outs, but Chris Gittins grounded out ending the inning. Loaisiga and Chapman would toss the final 2 scoreless frames although they both ran into trouble but escaped. Yankees definitely stole this game. Tallion got the win and Ottavino took the loss.

Game 4: 7/25/21, 1:10 PM (Boston wins 5-4)

Domingo German threw a no hitter through 7 innings and New York led 4-0 going into the 8th. Instead of an awesome win and series tie, it’s yet another bullpen implosion and “worst loss of the candidate” candidate. What an awful job by Aaron Boone and the bullpen. Absolutely embarrassing. German even struck out 4 hitters in 1 inning, he was lights out, the best start of his young career. Odor got the Yanks on the board in the 3rd with an RBI single scoring Allen. The following inning, Gio Urshela fresh off the COVID-19 list would rope an RBI single scoring Torres making it 2-0 Yankees. In the 6th, Odor belted a solo shot making it 3-0 New York. Boston starter Martin Perez wasn’t bad, he threw 6 innings while allowing 3 runs, that’s a quality start. DJ LeMahieu extended his consecutive games on base streak, which is now at 35, 7 games away from the Yankee franchise record set at 42 by Mark Teixeira in 2010. Yanks added on another run in the 8th via Torres RBI single scoring Sanchez who tripled to lead off the inning. German started the 8th, gave up the 1st Boston hit of the game to Alex Verdugo and got pulled for Loaisiga who came in being the Yankees best reliever with a 2.06 ERA, that certainly rose. He threw 7 pitches to 4 batters and gave up 4 hits and 4 runs. He clearly didn’t have it and I’m not sure why Boone didn’t take him out after 2 hits and he acknowledged it during the postgame press conference. Anyway, Zack Britton a ground ball pitcher was called upon with men on 2nd and 3rd with 1 out, why not bring in Green who strikes people out instead of giving up runs for groundouts? Weird and bad coaching by Boone. His time is up! Boston scored 5 runs in the 8th after being no hit and down 4-0 through 7 innings. Loaisiga got the loss and Brandon Workman got the win.

My thoughts:

I don’t understand why Boone still has a job. There’s 1 positive outcome to this series, the starting pitching accumulated to a 1.78 ERA in this 4 game series which is insane. You simply can’t lose 3/4 to the division leading Red Sox, I mean looking back at it the Yankees should have taken 3/4 if it weren’t for 2 late inning bullpen implosions. Yanks lead the league in blown games and you wonder how their record would look if those games were won, 58-40 to be exact, which would make them 2 games out of 1st place.

Trade Deadline:

Yankees have been linked to multiple big bats and pitchers recently, most notable being Trevor Story, Joey Gallo and Max Scherzer. Will they get any of them? Who knows. Hopefully Cashman puts some money into making this team better, realistically there isn’t a lot of holes in the roster. A bullpen piece doesn’t hurt either we’ll see though.

What’s next?

Boston stays home for a big time series with the 4th place Toronto Blue Jays while the Yankees fly to Tampa… with a 3 game set looming. Yanks have very favorable pitching matchups in this series so hopefully they can win the series. 1 series at a time and build momentum.