Price (9-6, 4.34 ERA) pitches for Boston at Yankee Stadium following three straight games with exactly 10 strikeouts and one walk. After their 5-3 loss, there was nothing different.
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Homers by Xander Bogaerts, Travis Shaw and Ryan Hanigan propelled Boston to a 5-3 victory over the Yankees in the Bronx. RHP Joe Kelly allowed a hit in two innings and struck out three for Triple-A Pawtucket against Charlotte.
In 12 starts, he owns a 5-5 record but he has given up 29 runs in 83 innings of work (3.14 ERA) to drop his seasonal average from 6.75 to 4.34.
One of the wins came in a relief role. Yankees starter, C.C. Sabathia, shut down the offense in the first two innings, but did surrender an unearned run in the top of the third inning.
Watch out Price, these Yankees have your number and are ever so stubborn to repeat history tonight as it means saving a season that looks all but lost.
Even if the Yankees survive this gauntlet with their postseason aspirations intact, things don’t ease up much moving forward.
The Yankees threatened to score in the fifth, but ended up stranding runners.
“It’s definitely not what you want”, NY manager Joe Girardi said. “Been coming from behind lately”.
Somebody should tell the Yankees they need to get out of their starting blocks.
If Rodriguez can give them more like he did Saturday and Pomeranz delivers as anticipated, the rotation could go from suspect to a team strength pretty quickly. Tomorrow we have an opportunity to tie the series.
Boston also reached deals with third baseman Bobby Dalbec (fourth round, $650,000), right-hander Mike Shawaryn (fifth round, $637,500), center fielder Juan Carlos Abreu (23rd round, $100,000), right-hander Francisco Lopez Soto (25th round, $40,000) and shortstop Ivan Houellemont (not drafted, $20,000).
Wins over the Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles on this 10-game homestand are important because the Yankees season could be determined.
Handicappers’ reluctance to roll with the AL East’s current second-place outfit has a lot to do with the shakiness of the man on the mound. Barnes gave up a home run to Headley right off the bat to have the Yankees trailing by 3 runs. After a pair of singles – both ground balls, one of them another hit that didn’t leave the infield, one of them accompanied by a throwing error – it was Red Sox backup catcher Sandy Leon who broke the game open with a three-run home run to left field, his second homer of the year. It was his first homer since May 18 (180 at-bats). “My advice would be continue to fight, continue to work hard and hopefully it will change for him”.
Leon crushed his three-run shot off Sabathia, who to that point had been hurt more by his defense and balls put in play with weak contact. Combined, Beltran, the Yankees run producer, Brian McCann, Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez had two of the four Yankees hits.
“We want to win not to keep our guys, we want to win because we want to make the playoffs, and that’s the goal”, Headley said. And it is beginning to get late in the game now that the second half has arrived and the manager knows it is getting at that juncture to be concerned and get this season on track. “Tampering? Who? I don’t write no paycheck”, said Ortiz. “We talk about it in here, we talk about it with the group in the clubhouse”.
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Gardner, the Yanks’ leadoff man, started Rodriguez’ day with a single.
