Stanton’s late slam sinks Sox
Yankees move into tie atop WC standings
yankees 5 red sox 3
If Nathan Eovaldi’s performance in Friday’s series opener was uncharacteristic, Saturday’s follow-up played out more like the potential American League Wild Card game that could take place between the Red Sox and Yankees in October.
But for the Red Sox, the result was even more gutting.
Darwinzon Hernandez looked, but he didn’t need to, and Alex Cora could only look on from the dugout with wonder. The Red Sox’ bullpen had played with fire for three innings against the Yankees, and it finally caught up to them. Giancarlo Stanton finally punished them with a mammoth goahead, two-out grand slam in the eighth inning sent deep into the Boston night and still might even be rolling along with traffic down the Mass. Pike.
Yankees 5, Red Sox 3, and now deadlocked atop the AL Wild Card standings with seven games left. In a season full of them, this crushing
loss had to rank near the top.
“We have to show up (Sunday),” Cora said. “We know where we’re at, and be ready to play.”
A win was within the Red Sox’ grasp as they led 2-1 into the eighth behind a dominant effort from Nick Pivetta. But the bullpen — which has been lights out for the better part of the last month — played with danger one too many times.
They had escaped the sixth, when Hansel Robles threw a wild pitch that
scored the Yankees’ first run, and they had gotten away from the seventh with the lead after Tanner Houck, in the biggest spot of his rookie season, issued two four-pitch walks to open the frame. But they weren’t as fortunate in the eighth.
Houck struck out the first
two batters of the inning, but didn’t record another out. He lost two full counts with Brett Gardner and Aaron Judge and walked both. And with left-handed hitting Anthony Rizzo coming up, Cora turned to the lefty Hernandez despite Rizzo’s good numbers against lefties (.326 entering Saturday). Josh Taylor was unavailable because he’s getting an MRI on his back, and Cora thought Hernandez, who entered Saturday with nine consecutive scoreless outings, was the right man for the job, even with Stanton waiting on deck.
“It’s not that you’re thinking something negative is going to happen with the lefty, but we do believe he can get the righty out in that spot, too,” Cora said. “So we went with him.”
But it backfired. Hernandez plunked Rizzo with a 3-1 pitch to load the bases, which necessitated a mound visit from Cora. It didn’t seem to do much. Hernandez’s first pitch to Stanton was a 94 mph fastball right down the middle, which the Yankees hitter has made a
living of demolishing. He made no mistake, cranking it 452 feet out of Fenway Park. It looked much farther than that.
“Electric,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said of Stanton’s slam, which created an expected stunned reaction from the mix of Red Sox and Yankees fans among the sellout Fenway crowd.
The crushing blast can be blamed on Cora’s decision to go to Hernandez, but it also never gets there if Houck finished off Gardner or Judge.
Despite starting the seventh with back-to-back four-pitch walks, Houck rebounded and thought his stuff was sharp, particularly his slider. He felt that he had a strong at-bat against Gardner, who he got ahead with a 1-2 count before throwing three straight balls. Against Judge, he had two strikes on him but narrowly missed on a 2-2 slider before walking him on a 3-2 fastball, which ended his night.
“The third and fourth walk, (they) just put together some good ABs,” Houck said. “(They) held off on some good pitches and just got to kind of tip your cap. It’s really unfortunate in that circumstance. I would have loved to have got that 2-2 call (to Judge) but that’s how the game is, you’re going to miss off just a little bit here and there and not get the calls. … It’s just part of the game. I felt good out there,”
The Red Sox, once dominant against the Yankees this season, need a win tonight to avoid being swept and losing the top spot in the Wild Card standings heading into the final week, after receiving two painful doses of reality the last two nights.
“We’ll be fine,” said Kevin Plawecki, whose X-rays came back negative on his foot after being hit by a pitch. “It’s what it’s all about. Nobody said it would be easy. It hasn’t been easy for us all year. We have grinded. We’ll be ready to get back to it (Sunday) and play the best baseball we can and whatever happens, happens. There’s no reason to put extra pressure on ourselves.”