They were tied with the Atlanta Braves (a team you don’t want to be tied for anything with) with the 25th-best record in one-run games at 16-22 (.421).
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As the Red Sox emerge virtually unscathed from a crucial week in the season, the road ahead doesn’t get much smoother.
Boston Red Sox’s Xander Bogaerts looks up as he crosses home plate after hitting a two-run home in the fifth inning of a baseball game against the New York Yankees in Boston, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016. In the seventh, Ramirez hit a fly homer off Tyler Clippard to bump the Red Sox into the lead and mark his 12 homer in 21 games.
Hanley Ramirez, who started on second, went to third, stopped, then tried to score when he saw Sanchez had his back to the plate. “Just went over his head, that’s baseball and unfortunate”. “You kind of know from start to finish it never stops”. Putting your name on another team’s uniform is just weird, but I guess Ortiz could pull it off since he was an honorary captain.
The 40-year-old Ortiz, who announced in November that it would be his final season, is 5 for 10 with a homer and five RBIs in the first three games against the Yankees, all wins by AL East-leading Boston. “And now, it’s a insane amount”, said Sox manager John Farrell.
The Red Sox held on to that lead for a 5-4 win. Ramirez was 9-for-16 with four homers and nine RBIs in the four-game series with the Yankees.Boston (85-64) moved a season-high 21 games over.500 and captured its first sweep of NY (77-72) in a series of four or more games in 26 years since June 4-7, 1990.The Red Sox moved three games ahead of the Baltimore Orioles for first place in the American League East.
It was a tight race this week, as Ramirez narrowly beat out Oakland Athletics outfielder Khris Davis, who also slugged five home runs, hit.400, drove in 13 runs, led the big leagues with nine runs scored, and drew seven walks, with an OPS of 1.571, an OBP of.531 and a slugging percentage of 1.040. They shut down the Yankees, holding them to just four hits over the last 5 1/3 innings.
Second baseman Starlin Castro left in the fifth inning after straining his right hamstring while rounding first base on a double. Pomeranz is winless in his last four starts and was lit up for five runs on four hits and a pair of walks over two innings in a loss to Baltimore on Tuesday.
Bogaerts homered off a billboard above the left-field wall in the fifth, slicing the deficit to 5-4. Yankees Manager Joe Girardi is looking for a way to remain in the hunt for the last wildcard spot, and isn’t about to throw in the towel just yet. Brett Gardner got the Yankees on the board in the first, with Didi Gregorius producing a two-out single to turn Gardner’s leadoff double into a run.
Yankees: CF Jacoby Ellsbury slid hard into the side of the bullpen, trying to make a catch and stayed in for an inning before leaving the game with what the team called a right knee injury. Both are undergoing testing in NY.
Powered by their strong batters, the Red Sox again re-wrote the game’s script, where the series games have always been about comebacks against the Yankees. Sure, why face Young with two outs when you can face Ramirez, who is hitting.421 with runners in scoring position since August 11?
The biggest problem for Boston seems to be their inability to win close games regardless of the total number of runs scored. “These guys had my back. We’ve lost some tough ones and had a chance to win a few”. “They’re a very good offence and we understand that”.
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BALTIMORE – Tampa Bay started this road trip with three losses to the Yankees in NY, but played much better since. Red Sox LH Drew Pomeranz (10-12, 3.25) Sabathia bounced back from a sub-par outing against Tampa Bay on September 8 by dominating the Los Angeles Dodgers in interleague play on Tuesday, scattering three hits over 6 1/3 scoreless innings while striking out seven.
