The Yankees edged their longtime rivals 6–5 at Fenway Park on Thursday
The Yankees beat the Red Sox at Fenway Park 6–5 for another close game in their long time rivalry that goes back more than 100 years.
Thursday’s game was surprisingly the first time the two teams had played since the first series of the season from April 8–10 at Yankee Stadium. Many Yankees vs. Red Sox game are close and that series was as well as the Yankees won two games by one and two runs and the Red Sox won the other game of the series by just one run. The schedule was surprising last season as well since the Yankees played the Red Sox for the first time on June 4.
The Yankees are now 3–1 against the Red Sox this season after finishing 9–10 against the Red Sox last season. The Yankees won the last six games that they played against the Red Sox last season after the Red Sox had been dominating the season series up until that point.
Last season, the Yankees and Red Sox both finished the season with a 92–70 record and tied for the two wild card spots (Boston hosted the wild card game since they won the season series). This season, the Yankees have a 60–23 record 83 games into the season, two games more than half way, and the Red Sox have 15 fewer wins with a 45–38 record. The Yankees have a 14.5 game lead over the Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East and are on pace to easily win the division after finishing eight games behind the Rays last season.
This season, the Yankees have a +176 run differential, which is 83 points better than the Astros, who have the second best run differential in the AL. The Astros 54–28 record is also the second best in the AL. The Yankees excel on offense and defense as they have scored 38 more runs than any other AL team and have allowed 24 fewer runs than any other AL team this season.
With last night’s win, the Yankees are an MLB-best 18–7 in one-run games. That can often seem like it is unsustainable, but they’re also an MLB-best 17–3 in games decided by 5 or more runs. Their excellent bullpen has helped them excel in one-run games. The Yankees have eight pitchers who have contributed in the bullpen who have ERAs of 3.04 or below.
The Yankees earned their 60th win of the season in their 83rd game of season, which is tied for the 2nd fewest games needed to reach 60 wins in franchise history. The Yankees got there in 80 games in 1998, a year they won the World Series.
The Yankees have hit five grand slams this season, which is tied with Guardians for most in MLB. They have also hit three grand slams in the last two games. They are eighth team in last 100 years to hit at least 3 grand slams in a two-game span.
In the third inning, off of Red Sox starter Josh Winckowski, Josh Donaldson hit a grand slam that scored Joey Gallo, Gleyber Torres and Giancarlo Stanton. Aaron Hicks was the next batter and he hit a 385 foot home run to right field to give the Yankees back-to back homers.
There was a loud Let’s Go Yankees chant at Fenway Park after Donaldson’s grand slam. Donaldson, who was 2–4, is now 4–9 with two homers and six RBI in his last two games. Before his last two games, he was 5–32 with zero homers and just three RBI in his previous nine games. He has a .286 average in July (6–21) after having a .205 average in June (17–83).
Hicks was 2–4 with that homer and RBI. He has been much better so far in July than he was in his last eight games in June, which is a good sign. In his five games in July, he is 7–17 (.412) with six runs scored, two doubles, two homers and seven RBI. In his last eight games of June, he was 2–24 with one homer and three RBI.
Gerrit Cole allowed five earned runs and five hits in 6.0 innings, which is not a good start from him, but all the runs scored in this game and off of Cole were off of two homers by Rafael Devers, who has 19 homers and 51 RBI this season.
Devers hit a Cole slider for a two-run homer in the third inning. That homer scored catcher Kevin Plawecki to make the score 5–3 Yankees.
Devers hit a well thrown changeup from Cole for a three-run homer in the fifth. Cole had a walk to №9 hitter Plawecki before that homer that he will regret. Cole got tentative since Devers hit his homers on off speed pitchers on a night when Cole had his best fastball.
Devers has outstanding numbers against Cole. Devers was 5–21 in his career coming into this game against Cole but four of those hits were homers and he had 10 RBI. He is now an impressive 7–23 (.304) in his career against Cole with six of hose hits being homers. Cole was open to suggestions for ways to improve his success rate against Devers.
“I’m open for suggestions,” the Yankees right-hander said after the game. “It’s pretty wild. He’s just been able to hit every(thing), there hasn’t been a miss-hit. Like, roll over one time. Like, line out one time.
“You’re supposed to fail seven out of 10 times in this gig. I don’t know what the deal is,” he said. “We’ll just have to just keep at it, man.”
Devers’ six homer are the most off of Cole in Cole’s career. Matt Carpenter, Joey Gallo and Ji Man Choi are all tied for second with four.
Cole has a 7.13 ERA in his last five starts at Fenway, including last year’s Wild Card game. He has given up nine homers over those outings, including six to Devers.
The Yankees are 23–5 in first game of a series this season.
Clay Holmes threw an excellent sinker that started in the strike zone and then went out of the strike zone for a swinging strikeout of Franchy Cordero for the second out of 9th. Holmes then fired to first on a soft grounder to third base side of the mound for the 3rd out of the 9th inning for his 16th save in 17 chances.
Former Yankee Rob Refsnyder hit that soft grounder. Refsnyder, who has always been known for his hitting and not his defense, has a solid .296 average (18–54) in 19 games this season.
Holmes has been outstanding and has been possibly the best relief pitcher in the American League. He pitched at Fenway in a save situation for his first time as a Yankees and was flawless. He has only allowed two earned runs this season in 38 innings (0.47 ERA) and his ERA+ of 803 is excellent since league average is 100. He has an outstanding 0.711 WHIP and has 39 strikeouts and zero homers allowed in his 38 innings.
He has had a remarkable improvement with the Yankees since in his 44 games with the Pirates last season he had a 4.93 ERA and a below league average 87 ERA+ and in his 62 games with the Yankees combined from last season after the trade and this season he has a very impressive 0.95 ERA and an ERA+ of 420.
The Yankees got a gift run in the fifth inning, which ended up being the run they would need to win the game.
Jose Trevino hit a fly ball in the infield that the first baseman misplayed and could not catch and since the second baseman and shortstop were close to the mound also Trevino got an RBI double. It was later changed to an error on the third baseman even though he did not get glove on the ball. It was then correctly changed back to being a double.
Trevino has not surprisingly cooled off at the plate the last two weeks but he still deserves to be an All-Star. Since he had a .282 average on June 23 after going 1–4, Trevino is 4–31 with zero homers and five RBI. His average has dropped from .282 to .250 in those nine games. However, his seven homers are tied for fourth among American League catchers, his 25th RBI are fifth most among American League catchers and he has been playing elite defense, which includes his elite pitch framing.
