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Red Sox pay homage to Dustin Pedroia with gritty win over Yankees
Boston's offense got on the board early, and the bullpen shut the door on the Yankees offense late.
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On a night when the Red Sox honored their former gritty second baseman Dustin Pedroia, they won on Friday seemingly in a fashion after his own heart.
Though they were far from perfect, Boston took the first game of its weekend series with the rival New York Yankees 5-3 in front of a soldout crowd at Fenway Park thanks to a gutsy bullpen performance and an opportunistic offense.
The win helped them keep pace with the AL East with the Tampa Bay Rays topping the L.A. Angels and moved them to 4.5 games ahead of the Yankees for second place in the division.
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Here are a few takeaways from the game:
The Red Sox offense does just enough.
On one hand, the Red Sox offense clearly understood and executed the assignment well early against Yankees starter Domingo Germán.
They worked a long first inning out of him – making him throw 31 pitches in the opening frame – and Xander Bogaerts and Hunter Renfroe lined two of Germán’s mistakes into the left-center field gap for RBI doubles.
They also forced Germán to field his position on a few occasions, one of which bore fruit: he fumbled a bouncer off the bat of Rafael Devers that allowed J.D. Martinez to reach third base with just one out in the third inning. Martinez then scored on a sacrifice fly from Hunter Renfroe.
The Sox weren’t able to threaten Germán again after that, but they succeeded in getting him out of the game after 72 pitches through four innings of work. They also made the Yankees use five relief pitchers in the first game of the series.
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They didn’t break through against the relievers, though, until Christian Vázquez looped an RBI single into right field for an insurance run in the ninth.
The slowdown in offensive production wasn’t ideal considering how well the game started. But the unit did enough to win and set itself up to eat into the Yankees bullpen later in the series.
The defense nearly cost them again.
Still, the Yankees might never have been in the game at all if the Red Sox hadn’t continued their increasingly frustrating habit of handing teams extra outs.
Pérez likely would’ve gotten out of the second inning unscathed had Bogaerts not booted a routine double-play grounder to short. But that’s what happened. The miscue loaded the bases, setting the stage for a run walked in by Pérez and a D.J. LaMahieu two-run single.
The three unearned runs that crossed the plate that inning pushed their total in June to 19 – more than any team in baseball this month.
It’s worth noting that the defense did improve later in the game.
Devers had a great defensive day, robbing Gary Sanchez of a hit with a sliding stop and starting a crucial double play that kept New York off the board in the third. Bogaerts shook off a tough outing at short to kick off a clutch 6-4-3 twin killing to end the game.
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Then, Renfroe’s MLB-leading 11th outfield assist cut down Gio Urshela at home plate in the fourth to save another run. (Seriously…teams really needed to stop running on that man.)
But the Red Sox can’t just afford to give teams out in key games, especially against AL East rivals battling them for control of the division. It needs to improve, or it’s going to hurt this team during the playoff hunt or at some point in October.
The bullpen came through in the clutch.
A day after a rough ninth inning, including an unearned run, sullied a great night for Boston pitching, the Sox’ bullpen rebounded in a big way after Pérez failed to make it through four innings.
Hirokazu Sawamura threw a clean 1.1 innings in relief of Pérez, only allowing one baserunner via a walk. He’s continued to be a steady performance in his first MLB season since coming over from Japan.
Garrett Whitlock put up zeroes in the sixth and seventh, allowing one baserunner on one hit.
Adam Ottavino mowed through his old team in the eighth with ease, and, allowing two runners to start the inning, closer Matt Barnes slammed the door shut for good in the ninth for his 16th save.
It hasn’t been an easy June for the bullpen, which has posted a 4.97 field-independent pitching (FIP) for the month — the fifth-worst mark in the league this month.
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It’s also worth noting that they’ve been saddled with nine unearned runs coming into Friday, more than every team but the San Francisco Giants. So the defense hasn’t done them many favors of late either.
But on a day they had to be good, they were.
As far as the starting pitching goes? Well, let’s just say Chris Sale can’t get back to the rotation soon enough.
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