The Red Sox finished off their four-game sweep, their Yankees’ massacre, with a thunderous 5-4 win at Fenway Park on Sunday night with Hanley Ramirez once again doing the damage.
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With the potential tying run on third base, Mookie Betts wanted to get the ball in the air.
The Boston Red Sox are starting to look like serious World Series contenders. The Red Sox are hosting the New York Yankees for Sunday Night Baseball. Ramirez hit a solo-shot in his next at-bat, giving the team the 5-4 lead they would maintain until the end of the game.
Hanley Ramirez, who started on second, went to third, stopped, then tried to score when he saw Sanchez had his back to the plate.
“Fortunately it was able to bounce over his head”, Betts said. RHP Michael Pineda (6-11, 4.94 ERA) is set to start against Tampa Bay LHP Drew Smyly (7-11, 4.98) in the opener of a three-game series on the road Tuesday. “Ideally, you want to get it in the air, but I just got on top of it”.
Jackie Bradley Jr. also showed out with a tying RBI single that evened the playing field after a hard start from Drew Pomeranz.
“On a day when you give David a blow, you put Hanley in the middle, you don’t seem to skip a beat”, Red Sox manager John Farrell said.
NY (77-70) wasted 3-0 and 5-2 leads and lost for the sixth time in seven games.
They are gamers: Chances are, the Red Sox will wind up the season with seven players getting into 140 or more games for the first time since 2003.
Red Sox starter Drew Pomeranz went just 3 2/3 innings, allowing four runs, all earned, on seven hits and two walks while striking out three.
“We know we’re going to have to win nearly every game just to get back in this thing”.
Making the loss even more damaging, Starlin Castro, the club leader in homers with 21, left in the fifth inning with a strained right hamstring and Jacoby Ellsbury left in the eighth with a right knee injury, suffered an inning earlier while he attempted to make a sliding catch and hit the wall.
“When I talked David after Friday night’s game – larger part because of the number of times he was on base and the extent to which he ran, a quick turnaround on Saturday – we talked about the upcoming two days, yesterday and today”, Farrell said.
NY scored single runs in the first and third before chasing Pomeranz with two in the fourth. Chase Headley, the second baserunner on the play, read the flight of the ball well and was just a few feet behind Gregorius when the pair crossed home plate.
“We could’ve won all four of these games here”, Girardi said.
NY took a 3-0 in the third on Brett Gardner’s RBI triple and Sanchez’s homer, which cleared the Monster seats above the left-field wall.
At this point, a playoff appearance would take a supernatural ending to 2016, and the 2016 New York Yankees have been the opposite of that as of late.
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“It’s the difference in the game, and it’s unfortunate”, Girardi said. Time is running out for members of Red Sox Nation residing in other areas of the country to see Ortiz in a nationally televised game, so those fans can’t be thrilled with the manager’s decision. The big game this week will be the USA vs Canada, a must win for the under-performing U.S squad that was beaten 3-0 by Team Europe in their first game of group play. “Like I say, I’ve got to give a lot of credit to those guys on the bench”. “We find a way to win”. “To me those games were just as insane and excited as they are now”. He allowed a home run to Gary Sanchez during the third inning.
