How sweep it is to take a day-night doubleheader from the Red Sox — the 3rd win of the 4-game series guaranteeing a series victory — the 4th straight win over the Sox, increasing the Yanks lead over Boston to 13.5 games. After the Yanks crushed Chris Sale in the 1st game, the Red Sox reportedly had to have a team meeting in between games of the doubleheader, and promptly went out and lost the second game.
A week ago today, the Yanks were coming off 3 straight shellackings by the Red Sox, their lead slimmed to 7 games. Since then, Boston hasn’t won a game, starting with Domingo German shutting them down last Sunday night, and continuing yesterday with German shutting them down again in the first game, and Chad Green and the Yankee bullpen beating them in the second game of the day-night doubleheader at the Stadium.
The Yanks (71-39) are now 13.5 ahead of Boston; 8 ahead of Tampa.
Battle of ‘Openers’
Green “opened” and pitched a shutout inning — lowering his ERA to 4.95. There was a time earlier this season when it was over 12.00 and he was sent to the minors to get his stuff together. He did. And he’s been perfect in the “opener” role.
Nestor Cortes Jr. followed him, and struggled through his two innings but got through — getting Michael Chavis on a big fly to left for the final out of the 2nd with runners on 1st and 2nd, but allowing a 2-run homer to Rafael Devers in the 3rd.
Boston countered with an ‘opener’ of their own — Brian Johnson — who pitched a scoreless first 2 innings.
Torres, Torres, Torres
Gleyber Torres got the Yanks right back into it with a homerun in the bottom of the 3rd, and Cameron Maybin doubled in 2 runs to put the Yanks ahead.
Cam puts us on top ☝️ pic.twitter.com/c8dw30M655
— New York Yankees (@Yankees) August 4, 2019
Chance Adams pitched the 4th and allowed the first two guys to get on, then got 2 outs, before surrendering a 2-out, 2-RBI single to Mookie Betts — Boston 4 NY 3. Adams pitched a perfect 5th and Gleyber Torres got it back even with a homerun in the 5th.
Gleyber got ALL of it. pic.twitter.com/aWOoBdAL0x
— MLB (@MLB) August 4, 2019
Battle of Bullpens
It was then a battle of the bullpens — and the Red Sox blinked first. Gleyber Torres JUST MISSED his 3rd homer in the 7th — the ball bouncing off the top of the right-centerfield wall for a double. Later Mike Tauchman singled in Torres and Aaron Hicks for the 6-4 Yankee lead.
Mi🔑 Tauchman. pic.twitter.com/hL4UCIH0xc
— New York Yankees (@Yankees) August 4, 2019
Adam Ottavino, Tommy Kahnle, Zack Britton, and Aroldis Chapman each pitched a scoreless inning to shut down the Sox.
Britton walked the high wire in the 8th — loading the bases with 2 outs — before striking out Rafael Devers.
In the 9th, Chapman walked J.D. Martinez to put the tieing run at the plate with 1 out, but struck out Andrew Benintendi and leftfielder Sam Travis — throwing 102 MPH SMOKE — which was Great to see.
Etcetera
Before the game it was announced that Edwin Encarnacion‘s wrist was broken on a hit-by-pitch in the 1st game. He’s expected to be out 3 to 5 weeks.
Aaron Judge went 2 for 5 in the 2nd game to raise his average back to .284. He went 1-3 in the 1st game and 1-3 with a walk Friday night, so he seems to be coming out of the slump that dropped his average from .311 down into the .270’s.
Gio Urshela went 1-3 again to raise his average to .314. He still does not qualify to be listed amongst league leaders but would be 5th in the AL if he did qualify. DJ LeMahieu (1 for 5 in this game) continues to lead the AL in batting at .336; Rafael Devers is 2nd at .323. Xander Bogaerts is 5th at .309. J.D. Martinez is 10th at .298 and Gleyber Torres is 16th at .288. Meaning if Urshela qualified, the Yankees and Red Sox would have 6 of the top 17 hitters in the American League, not counting Judge who was in the top ten 2 weeks ago and may be heading back soon (although he’d need to play just about all remaining Yankee games to qualify).
The Yankee pitchers were able to limit Xander Bogaerts and Andrew Benintendi — who both went 0-5 in this game.
The Boxscore
https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore?gameId=401136073
The First Game
First game coverage of the doubleheader — the Yankees 9-2 win — is here.
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