Great game. Would watch again and again. It was a simple winning formula against a good team and an exceptional pitcher in Chris Sale – score a lot of runs and limit the damage. The Yankees are now 3.5 games back the Red Sox in the AL East standings and 2 games ahead the Twins in the AL Wild Card standings. Let’s recap this thing.
Make him work
The Yankees drew the first blood in the pitching duel (or, rather, what was supposed to be a pitching duel). Leading off the bottom of the third, Chase Headley hit a hanging 0-2 slider from Sale just over the left field fence to give Yankees a 1-0 lead. Sale wanted the pitch down but it was left up in the zone and Headley just rode it out.
New York tacked on more in the fourth. With one out, Matt Holliday battled Sale to a 3-2 count and drove a fastball up into the visitor’s bullpen to make it 2-0. Todd Frazier followed it up with a homer of his own. On a 2-2 count, Sale located a slider just below the zone that… again, hung. Frazier did what big league hitters do against hanging sliders – hit it out. 3-0 Yankees.
Chris Sale is an undisputed Cy Young candidate this season. However, Yankee hitters really, really made him work tonight. By the end of the fourth inning, he had already thrown 96 pitches. The Yankees did have some blown opportunities in the first two innings of the game. In the bottom of first, Headley and Gary Sanchez reached base with a single each but Starlin Castro and Aaron Judge both struck out to end the inning. In the second, Holliday and Jacoby Ellsbury reached bases but the Yankees, once again, came up empty-handed. However, the silver lining was there – they upped the pitch count on Sale, forcing the Red Sox to get into their bullpen in the fifth inning. Even though Sale didn’t have the greatest game, that alone is pretty valuable.
Sevsational
Ho-hum, what can we say at this point? Luis Severino is the undisputed ace of the staff and he pitched like one tonight. He pitched six strong innings, struck out nine and allowed only two base hits. His ERA is now down to 3.03 and his peripherals (3.12 FIP, 10.68 K/9 IP, 2.39 BB/9 IP) are impressive as usual. Also he’s only 23. We are witnessing perhaps the best season by a young Yankee starter in ages.
Severino got into a bit of trouble in the sixth inning. With one out, Eduardo Nunez reached on an error by Frazier. To be fair, it was a hard-hit ball with a tricky hop. It could have easily be called as a single. Andrew Benintendi lined out to Brett Gardner to make it two outs. Mookie Betts followed it up with another hard grounder to third. Frazier handled it with his glove but the throw was too low for Headley to handle. As the ball past by him, both runners advanced to second and third. On a 1-2 count on Mitch Moreland, the Red Sox scored their first run with a passed ball that snuck under Sanchez’s glove. However, Severino got out of it quickly by striking out Moreland on the very next pitch. Two E5’s and a passed ball were what it took for Severino to give up a run tonight. Go figure.
Lastly – a milestone alert. Sevy reached 200th strikeout of the season tonight. He’s the second Yankee starter ever 23-year old or younger to accomplish the feat – the other being Al Downing back in 1964. He’s also the first AL pitcher 23-years or younger to strike out 200 in a season since Felix Hernandez in 2009. Not bad company at all.
Six runs in the sixth
The Yankees blew it open in the bottom of the sixth. Frazier struck out against Joe Kelly and John Farrell put in lefty Robby Scott to face Ellsbury and Gardner. And, of course, both of them reach via single and walk respectively. Farrell, in an attempt to keep the game close, brought in Addison Reed to face Headley. Well, it worked against Headley for sure, as Reed struck him out swinging. However, Sanchez beat out a throw from rafael Devers for an infield single to drive in Holliday. It was originally ruled as out but they overturned it after Girardi’s challenge.
With a 4-1 lead, Castro laid the hammer on the Red Sox. He hit a fastball away into right field for a bases-clearing 3-run double. Up next, Judge hit a two-run homer to make it 9-1. He hit one really deep (469 feet per Statcast) and the Stadium went absolutely crazy. In the last game against the Red Sox this season, capping off a big inning with a big homer from a big man… that’s just awesome. That’s his 38th of the season and the first since August 16 vs. the Mets. It’s been long overdue. I say this every time but hopefully, this is the homer that gets him going in September.
Leftovers
After a long rest and with a 8-run lead, Joe Girardi decided to call it a night for Severino and put Tommy Kahnle in for the seventh inning. It’s hard to say that things can get dicey when you have a 8-run cushion, but because Kahnle is supposed to be a shutdown reliever that Yankees would rely on a lot for this stretch, the fans were not pleased when he let the first two hitters reach bases (Dustin Pedroia walk and Deven Marrero single). However, he struck out the next two and got Jackie Bradley Jr. to pop out. No harm done.
Chasen Shreve pitched a clean eighth and Giovanny Gallegos pitched the ninth to close it out. Well, the latter allowed a garbage-time run to shorten the Red Sox deficit to seven runs but that was pretty much it. 9-2 Yankees win.
While guys like Headley, Sanchez and Castro had big nights (7-for-14, 5 RBI combined), the bottom of the order also came up big. Holliday, Frazier and Ellsbury combined for a 5-for-9 night with 2 RBI and 3 walks.
Box score, video highlights, updated standings and WPA
Here are tonight’s box score and updated standings from ESPN, video highlights from MLB dot com and WPA from Fangraphs.
Source: FanGraphs
The Yankees are heading to Baltimore for a three-game series at the Camden Yards. Jordan Montgomery will be on the hill against Dylan Bundy for a 2:05 pm start.
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