▶New York, plagued by coronavirus absences, blanked by rival Red Sox, 4-0.
Yankees held scoreless by Red Sox in first game after All-star break
Eduardo Rodriguez shut down the short-handed Yankees into the sixth inning, Christian Arroyo and J.D. Martinez homered, and the Boston Red Sox beat their rivals 4-0 Friday night with New York missing slugger Aaron Judge and five others due to a coronavirus outbreak.
A day after the series opener was postponed for testing and contact tracing, Judge, third baseman Gio Urshela and catcher Kyle Higashioka were added to the COVID-19 injured list. They joined Yankees pitchers Jonathan Loaisiga, Nestor Cortes Jr. and Wandy Peralta, who have also tested positive over the past week.
New York was also without first baseman Luke Voit, who went on the injured list Friday with a bone bruise in his left knee.
Rodriguez (7-5) allowed two hits over 5⅔ innings, retiring 10 straight during one stretch and finishing with eight strikeouts. Hirokazu Sawamura got the final out of the sixth, and Tanner Houck pitched the final three innings, closing out Boston’s three-hitter for his first big league save.
Arroyo hit a two-run drive during a three-run second inning against starter Jordan Montgomery (3-5). He also had a double against Domingo German in the seventh.
Martinez connected against Justin Wilson in the eighth, lining his 19th of the season into the right field seats for a solo shot that made it 4-0.
Montgomery pitched threerun ball over six innings with three hits, two walks and four strikeouts. New York failed to score with Montgomery on the mound for his fifth straight start, matching Bill Short in 1960 and Fritz Peterson in 1967 for the longest such streak in franchise history, according to STATS.
The AL East-leading Red Sox improved to 7-0 in the 19-game season series and beat New York for the eighth consecutive time, their best run in the rivalry since winning eight straight meetings from 2008-09.
The fourth-place Yankees were coming off a disappointing first half that ended Sunday when Houston’s Jose Altuve hit a walk-off homer in an 8-7 New York defeat. They’re now nine games back of Boston and likely to be without Judge and their other Covid-19-positive players for at least 10 days.
New York promoted four hitters from Triple-a Scranton/ Wilkes-barre: first baseman Chris Gittens, infielder Hoy Park, outfielder Greg Allen and catcher Rob Brantly.