Sox Drew up big win
Close to within 1 of Yanks
NEW YORK — The Red Sox and Yankees are neck and neck again. The deficit is down to one. After a nail-biting 5-4 win against the Bronx Bombers last night at Yankee Stadium, the Red Sox moved to 32-25 and now sit one game behind the first-place Yankees (32-23) in the AL East with last year’s Cy Young Award winner, Rick Porcello, on the mound against CC Sabathia tonight.
“First time we’ve gone back-to-back in a while,” manager John Farrell said referring to Mitch Moreland and Hanley Ramirez belting consecutive homers in the fourth inning. “It’s good to see guys swing the bats as we did.”
June baseball doesn’t always look the prettiest, but as tight as the division looks early in the year, and as potent as the Yankees offense has been, these might as well be playoff games.
If Masahiro Tanaka continues to pitch the way he did last night, give the edge to the Red Sox.
Tanaka has often owned the Sox through the years, coming in with a 6-2 record and 3.52 ERA in 11 starts against them. He hadn’t allowed more than two runs vs. the Sox since 2015 and threw a 97-pitch shutout at Fenway Park earlier this year.
But Tanaka has faded since. And fast. His signature splitter showed very little bite last night, when he allowed three home runs to a team that ranks last in the AL with 56 on the year. His ERA jumped to 6.55, and he’s allowed more earned runs than anyone in the league.
The Sox jumped ahead 1-0 by manufacturing a run in the first inning, then added three more in the fourth when Moreland demolished a belt-high slider for a tworun shot to right-center. Ramirez then got a fat splitter that was almost impossible to miss and cleared the wall in left.
Andrew Benintendi could have rounded the bases three times before anyone tracked down the monster shot he hit to extend the Sox’ lead to 5-1 in the fifth. Tanaka was done after just 52 pitches.
“I think even over the last couple or three weeks, we’re seeing the ball being impacted a little more consistently,” Farrell said. “It’s good to see it from a number of different guys. That’s the biggest thing.”
It was a much different night for Drew Pomeranz.
Coming off two of his best starts in a Red Sox uniform, Pomeranz came out firing, touching 95 mph three times in the first inning. He hadn’t thrown 95 since his first start of the year.
“I made another mechanical tweak,” he said.
And while a mistake by Mookie Betts led to one run in the second, Pomeranz showed no signs of trouble until the fifth.
He entered the inning on 94 pitches then allowed a leadoff homer to Chris Carter on his 100th pitch of the game.
Three starts earlier, he had been removed after just 97 pitches and four innings, then argued with in the dugout before hitting the showers. Last night, Farrell let him pitch.
With his fastball down to 91 mph, Pomeranz, who had an offseason stem-cell injection and has twice walked off the mound with triceps injuries in 2017, stayed in the game to face Brett Gardner and Gary Sanchez, retiring them both.
“I felt strong,” Pomeranz said. “It would be one thing if I was out there tired. But I think I was still throwing low-90s and felt strong all the way to the end.”
Not even the Bronx Undertaker, Aaron Judge, was intimidating enough to entice Farrell to make a pitching change. Pomeranz clearly was laboring, and Judge got the best of him, doubling to end a six-pitch at-bat.
With Pomeranz at 117 pitches, pitching coach Carl Willis paid him a visit.
“The warmest guy on the field is the guy on the mound,” Farrell said.
Shaking his arm and waving it around, Pomeranz stepped back on the rubber and struck out Matt Holliday on his 123rd pitch, shattering his previous career high of 113 pitches.
“(Farrell) left me in there and trusted me in that situation,” Pomeranz said. “So I gave it my all to get back in the dugout and not have to bring another reliever in.”
Robbie Scott gave up a run in the sixth, Joe Kelly struck out Judge on a slider after touching 102.2 mph in a scoreless seventh and Matt Barnes and Craig Kimbrel combined to give up another run in the eighth, but the closer (five Ks) held on in the ninth for his 17th save.