The Yanks can again punch their ticket to the Wild Card game with a win tonight in their final meeting of the season with the Red Sox.
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But then disaster struck in the form of a two-out rally.
Tanaka also allowed an RBI single to designated hitter David Ortiz but settled down the rest of the way.
Sabathia (5-10, 4.82 ERA) wasn’t sharp Friday, giving up four runs and two homers in 6 2-3 innings of a 5-2 loss to the Chicago White Sox.
As the Yankees headed into the extra innings, their playoff situation still was unclear.
Each of Sabathia’s last three starts against Boston have ended in New York victories while he’s gone 1-0 with a 2.50 ERA and 19 strikeouts in 18 innings. Refsnyder hit a ground rule double to right field, which got in front of Holt and bounced into the stands. When the full-count offering did not dive down like splitters are supposed, it became a three-run home run.
Jacoby Ellsbury led off the inning with a double and took third on a wild pitch. He was able to tag up and move to third on a Bogaerts fly out, and he scored when Ortiz singled. He has pitched at least six innings in 14 straight starts since July 3 and in 19 of 23 this season.
The victory was doubly significant, as New York notched its 10,000th win in franchise history, becoming the first in the American League to reach that milestone. Girardi said that despite his inexperience in that role, he would trust Eovaldi out of the bullpen ‘if he was throwing the ball well’.
Recently it has been discovered that Stephen Drew has dealt with an ear infection, and has really effected his balance. Young tied the game with a single to third base, which was just fair and knocked down by the glove of Deven Marrero, preventing it from becoming extra bases. Greg Bird then drew a walk, bringing Rob Refsnyder to the plate. Betts then hit another home run, breaking this game open and making it 9-5.
Betts smacked a 2-0, 96 miles per hour fastball from Betances over the center field wall.
Alex Rodriguez would give the Yankees the lead in the sixth with a monster solo blast off of Matt Barnes.
The Yankees have six games remaining on their schedule. But Mookie Betts responded in kind with two down in the seventh, evening things back up at 5-5, and from there, the pen held. Girardi, on more than one occasion this year, has compared Warren to Ramiro Mendoza, a Yankees starter/reliever who was part of four World Series winning teams in his career from 1996 to 2005. In the eighth inning alone, the Red Sox walked four Yankees, but they couldn’t score.
In his second season with the Yankees since moving from the Rakuten Eagles of Japan’s Pacific League, Tanaka has a 12-7 record with a 3.38 earned run average and is considered the de facto ace of the Yankees. He had to throw a lot of pitches to get out of jams, seemed rattled at times and gave up a 4-1 lead. Shaw followed with a home run to right field, the ball flying deep into the stands. After Bailey was replaced by struggling left-hander Chasen Shreve, outfielder Jackie Bradley drove in a run with a sacrifice bunt. Perhaps it was to do with the teams respective positions in the standings: Boston, having always been out of contention, and New York, with a 99.9% chance of securing the wild card slot, according to Baseball Prospectus.
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Because the Minnesota Twins and the Los Angeles Angels had lost their games earlier in the day, the Yankees merely had to win to lock up their first playoff berth in three years but they failed to do so.
