New York Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez grounds out to Boston Red Sox catcher Sandy Leon with the bases loaded, allowing Brett Gardner to score during the eighth inning of a baseball game in Boston, Thursday, Aug. 11, 2016. Still, Rodriguez insisted that he’s going into tonight’s game with a belief that “this is it”, his final turn at-bat. Rain is in the NY forecast Friday night.
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“It would have just been fun again”, Rodriguez said. “Not how I pictured it when I woke up this morning”.
Red Sox: Pedroia left the game after the second inning with flu-like symptoms.
On Friday night, he’ll play what he says is his final Major League Baseball game, suiting up one last time for the New York Yankees before they release him and he goes home until next season when he’ll start back with the club in an advisory role.
It didn’t take long for all that to evaporate against the Boston Red Sox.
The setting was the Yankees were tied 4-4 in the 9th with two outs and Johnny Damon had a huge 9 pitch at-bat that ended with Damon getting a single.
“I’ve been working a lot in the cage, and talking a lot with [Red Sox hitting coach] Chili [Davis] and [Red Sox assistant hitting coach] Victor [Rodriguez] and he keeps telling me ‘pick one side of the plate, ‘ and you know you can’t cover the whole thing before you get two strikes on you”, Ramirez said. Having seen his lights go down on Broadway, is Miami 2017 in his future?
“That’s how I’m going to remember it – the RBI”, Rodriguez said. Rodriguez is 2-for-15 off Archer and both hits are home runs.
Price (10-8) gave up a two-run homer to Rickie Weeks in the first and settled in for his first win in six starts.
Clinging to an AL wild-card spot with less than 50 games to play, it’s all hands on deck for the Red Sox. “Until we have that second opinion, we’re not going to release anything”, Girardi said. And they haven’t won a series since a two-game sweep of the San Francisco Giants on July 19-20.
Brad Ziegler (0-3) surrendered all three runs in the eighth, though only one was earned.
“I felt like I made a couple pretty good pitches”. After the 2010 Divisional Series, A-Rod never hit over.200 in a playoff series and he did not even come close to winning a regular season MVP. NY had four hits in the inning against Ziegler, including a double by Jacoby Ellsbury with the bases loaded for two runs that put the Yankees up 3-2. Pedroia made a sliding stop but fired an off-target throw to Ramirez at first.
While he was backing up to make the play, Ramirez was bowled over by Sanchez at the bag. Ramirez stayed in the game after being checked out.
Ramirez snapped an 0-for-16 spell in the process, collecting his first hit since tripping down the dugout stairs on August 2 at Seattle.
The Yankees’ other run came on Austin Romine’s solo homer to left in the third.
Ramirez’s second homer, to straight away center, stretched the Red Sox’s lead to 8-2.
NOTES: Boston DH David Ortiz was in the lineup after fouling a ball off his right shin and leaving Wednesday’s game.RF Mookie Betts, who also departed Wednesday with right calf tightness, did not play.
Boston had a pitching setback of its own Wednesday, announcing that scheduled Thursday starter Steven Wright was being skipped due to right shoulder inflammation. RHP Nick Goody and INF/OF Rob Refsnyder were optioned to the minors.
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Red Sox: RHP Clay Buchholz (4-9, 5.64 ERA) gets the start as Wright continues to mend his injured shoulder.
