A bit of a nail-biter into a laugher into a hurry: the Yankees offense exploded in the sixth and seventh to blow out the Red Sox for a 13-3 win. The Yankees greeted Henry Owens – making his ML debut – with a first-inning run but were shut out the next four innings. Meanwhile, Masahiro Tanaka allowed three runs in six innings, which is decent but eh, it could have been a better start. But in the end, not a lot of people were complaining about the game as the Yankees offense exploded once again to completely flatten the opposing pitching.
Welcome to the bigs, Henry!
The Yankees struck first against LHP Henry Owens. In the first, with runners on first and second, Mark Teixeira squeaked an RBI grounder single up the middle to give the Yanks a 1-0 lead. Yankee hitters made the rookie lefty work from the get go – Owens threw 34 pitches in that frame (17 strikes, 17 balls).
For the next four innings, however, the Yankees didn’t really come up with much. They only had one baserunner (Chase Headley single in the second) and struck out four. Owens has been one of Red Sox’s top prospects for awhile so he’s not really projected to be a AAAA scrub. Unless if the Red Sox plan a massive trade to bring in an impact player, I don’t see him parting away from them anytime soon.
A quality start
Tanaka looked solid for the first four innings. His fastball topped out at 95, his secondary stuff had good depth in general and his command was, well, there. In that time span, he allowed only one baserunner (the bloop double to Mike Napoli in the second that really shouldn’t have happened) and struck out three. Pretty, pretty good.
In the fifth, Napoli doubled again, and it was a legit one – a line drive to left field with one out. Alejandro De Aza then snuck a bunt and Tanaka couldn’t handle it. With runners on corners and one out, Blake Swihart singled to tied the game and Jackie Bradley Jr. followed it up with a sac fly to give Boston a 2-1 lead.
In the seventh, with the Yankees then leading 4-2, Tanaka allowed a solo homer to Pablo Sandoval on the ninth pitch of at-bat. Dingers plaguing Tanaka again! Joe Girardi immediately pulled him out for Justin Wilson. Honestly, I thought Tanaka had a much better showing than in Texas last week and this was one of the better starts of his up-and-down 2015 season. If it weren’t for a botch bunt grounder in fifth, I feel his line would have looked better.
The highlight of his start, in my opinion, came in the sixth when he snagged a David Ortiz liner right above his head and doubled up Hanley Ramirez for a double play. Nifty.
Late runs
Entering the bottom sixth, Henry Owens was holding on his own against the Yankee offense, having allowed only a run in five solid innings. In the next two innings, New York would score twelve runs combined against him and the Red Sox bullpen. How’s that for a turnaround?
Anyways, bottom sixth, it took two hits (a Chris Young single and an A-Rod double) to knock Owens out of the game. John Farrell brought in Robbie Ross Jr. to face Mark Teixeira with no outs and runners on second and third. Tex lined a single to left to tie the game and Brian McCann followed it up with a double to center to put the Yanks ahead 3-2. Carlos Beltran grounded out to bring Teixeira in, 4-2.
All heck broke loose in the seventh. As you can tell by the notion of a “nine-run inning”, a lot of things took place so I’m just going to leave this right here.
Jean Machi pitching for Boston | BOS | NYY |
---|---|---|
Castillo in right field. | 3 | 4 |
Ellsbury safe at first on throwing error by shortstop Bogaerts. | 3 | 4 |
Young walked, Ellsbury to second. | 3 | 4 |
Rodriguez singled to center, Ellsbury scored, Young to second. | 3 | 5 |
Breslow relieved Machí. | 3 | 5 |
Teixeira struck out swinging. | 3 | 5 |
McCann homered to right, Young and Rodriguez scored. | 3 | 8 |
Beltrán doubled to deep right center. | 3 | 8 |
Headley doubled to left, Beltrán scored. | 3 | 9 |
Gregorius flied out to right. | 3 | 9 |
Ryan walked. | 3 | 9 |
Ellsbury singled to left, Headley scored, Ryan to third. | 3 | 10 |
Ogando relieved Breslow. | 3 | 10 |
Young homered to left, Ryan and Ellsbury scored. | 3 | 13 |
Rodriguez walked. | 3 | 13 |
Teixeira struck out swinging. | 3 | 13 |
9 Runs, 6 Hits, 1 Errors |
While most players were having fun, Teixeira became the one who struck out twice in a big inning. Bum!
Leftovers
In the second inning, Chris Young and Jacoby Ellsbury had a miscommunication on a Mike Napoli fly ball to deep left. Young should’ve gotten it but the ball dropped just shy of his glove. Fortunately for the Yankees, it was two outs and Napoli did not score but, come on.
Bottom seventh, Justin Wilson was working on Jackie Bradley Jr. with Rusney Castillo on first and two outs. On a 1-2 pitch, Castillo took off for second. McCann let Wilson’s 97 mph fastball roll behind him to allow Castillo to steal the base. And at that moment, Girardi didn’t waste any time taking Wilson out for Dellin Betances – which was quite unusual since it was a lefty pitcher facing lefty batter already. I guess Girardi wanted to go for the kill? Anyways, Betances ended up walking Bradley Jr. but struck out Brock Holt to get out of the mess.
Brandon Pinder hasn’t shown too much in terms of ML stats but man, I love that Yankees potentially have another future reliever that can throw in high-90’s. He’s had pretty solid strikeout and walk numbers in minors and he has a power stuff so I think he could be a solid arm that sticks around for awhile. We’ll see.
Box score, standings, highlights, WPA
Here’s tonight’s box score, updated standings, video highlights and WPA.
Source: FanGraphs
Yankees are back at it tomorrow night in Bronx against the Red Sox. Luis Severino makes his ML debut and you may have heard of him. Looking forward to it!
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