Red Sox strike fast, hold off Yankees
BOSTON — Chris Sale left the mound to a standing ovation and then waited along with anxious Red Sox fans while the Boston bullpen frittered away most of a five-run lead.
Bases loaded in the sixth inning. Two runs.
Bases loaded, no outs in the seventh. The Yankees scored another.
A leadoff home run by Aaron Judge in the ninth made it a onerun game.
It was only after Craig Kimbrel struck out the last three New York batters that Sale could savor his first postseason win, a 5-4 victory over Boston’s longtime rivals Friday in Game 1 of an American League division series.
“There’s no holding back now. It’s everything on the table, everything you’ve got,” Sale said after striking out eight and taking a four-hit shutout into the sixth. “I threw every pitch tonight like (manager Alex Cora) was going to take the ball out of my hand after.”
Game 2 in the best-of-five series is Saturday, with Boston starting another pitcher trying to overcome a history of postseason struggles: left-hander David Price is 0-8 as a starter in the playoffs. He’ll face Yankees righty Masahiro Tanaka.
“It’s a five-game series, and getting them to use the bullpen is a good thing,” Judge said. “We were able to scratch a couple of runs off them. We’ve got to build offthat.”
In the first playoff matchup between the teams since 2004, J.D. Martinez hit a three-run homer off J.A. Happ in the first. The 108win Red Sox made it 5-0 in the third and then white-knuckled it as New York chipped away after Sale left with two on and one out in the sixth.
New York, which won 100 regular-season games plus the AL wild-card game against Oakland, got three singles and two walks in the sixth, scoring two before Brandon Workman — the lone playerontheredsoxrosterwith aworldseriesring—struckout Gleybertorrestoendthethreat.
At Houston, a year after launching aworldseries-record15home runs in winning its first championship,
Astros 7, Indians 2 —
Houston picked up where it left off, hitting four homers to open its division series.
Reigning World Series MVP George Springer, Alex Bregman, Jose Altuve and Martin Maldonado went deep to back Justin Verlander, who took a no-hitter into the sixth inning of his 12th postseason win.
Verlander allowed two runs and two hits over 5 1/3 innings, and Cleveland totaled three hits — all singles.
Indiansstartercoreykluber,a two-time Cy Young winner coming off his first 20-win season, was tagged for three home runs in 4 2/3 innings.
Itwasanearrepeatfromlast October’s ALDS, when he made two starts against New York, gave up four homers and left with a 12.79 ERA.