Yankees 9, Red Sox 6: Bombers bash Buehler, beat Boston in the Bronx
In a rather belated but still anticipated beginning to a new chapter of the best rivalry in sports, the Yankees welcomed the Red Sox to town and, following that greeting, kicked them in the teeth. Jazz Chisholm Jr. led an early onslaught of Walker Buehler which totaled five runs in the first, followed by another two in the second. The Red Sox would get back up from that kick and rally to make it a close game, but couldn't close the gap, that early septet of scoring making the difference in a 9-6 win.
Buehler had himself a career highlight his last time at Yankee Stadium, striking out Alex Verdugo to win the World Series for the Dodgers last October. His return to the Bronx, now in crimson hosiery (and with no Verdugo on the other side), was not so joyous. Trent Grisham started the first inning with a leadoff walk and Aaron Judge doubled to put two runners in scoring position. Just when it seemed like Buehler was about to wiggle out of the jam with two outs, up came Chisholm. He golfed a curveball from Buehler in the air to center field and it just kept carrying over the wall and into Monument Park for a quick 3-0 Yankee lead.
The Bombers weren't done. From there, a Jasson DomÃnguez base hit set the table for Anthony Volpe, who flipped around a fastball from Buehler and shot it over the right-field short porch.
Chisholm's homer was his ninth of the season, Volpe his eighth.
After another clean inning from Will Warren in the second, both of those men grabbed another RBI apiece in the home half as the Yankees again tormented Buehler with two outs. A costly error from the rookie Marcelo Mayer at third base put two on for Chisholm. Jazz punched a base hit over the leap of first baseman Abraham Toro to extend the lead to 6-0.
A walk to DomÃnguez loaded the bases for Volpe, and on 2-2 offering, Buehler nailed him on the elbow with a changeup to force in another run. The Yankees held a 7-0 lead after two, but the bruise Volpe sustained on that elbow caused him to leave the game. He underwent X-rays and a CAT scan during the game, and Aaron Boone said in the postgame that they came back clean with thankfully only an elbow contusion.
As Zack Kelly got to work trying to keep the Bomber bats from having any more of a field day, Mayer found some redemption for his second-inning error. In the fifth, the 22-year-old top prospect clobbered a middle-middle fastball from Warren into the right field seats for his first career home run. Mayer understandably had a bit of a muted reaction to the milestone, as the scoreboard still read 7-1 New York.
Then Judge and the Yankees got that run back in the bottom of the fifth. Lefty Brennan Bernardino allowed a single to Austin Wells and walked DJ LeMahieu to put himself in a bind ahead of the top of the order. Judge smacked a 1-0 curveball past the dive of Mayer into left for his third hit of the game, scoring Wells from second and restoring the seven-run lead.
It was nice to see Warren get a bunch of run support after his rough night at Chavez Ravine last time out. For five innings, he was excellent in his own right, attacking Boston hitters with the fastball and working economically. He got into big trouble in the sixth though, which just made it that much nicer to have a ton of cushion.
Boston's rally began with a leadoff triple from Jarren Duran. After a walk to Devers, Duran scored on a Wilyer Abreu sac fly to make it 8-2. Two more walks from Warren loaded the bases for the Red Sox and marked the end of the road for the Yankees starter. Brent Headrick entered and promptly allowed a two-run single to pinch-hitter Romy Gonzalez. With two in scoring position, Headrick bore down and struck out the next two Red Sox to end the rally at 8-4.
Once again, though, the Yankees responded quickly. Paul Goldschmidt said hello to new pitcher Cooper Criswell with a fly ball to the short porch in right for his seventh home run of the season. That Yankee Stadium Special was the Bombers’ third big fly of the evening.
The Red Sox, though, kept creeping back.
Well, creeping implies subtlety, which Rafael Devers doesn't really do. He vastly prefers to announce his presence with towering fly balls, as he did here off Headrick in the seventh.
This two-run homer traveled 419 feet and suddenly made it a three-run ballgame, 9-6.
Fernando Cruz struck out a pair just as Headrick did when he came in for Warren, and the Red Sox left it there. Jonathan Loáisiga then worked around a leadoff double to mercifully put a zero on the board in the eighth. The Yankees did not add on to their lead, so it was a save situation for Devin Williams in the ninth.
Thankfully, it was not a typical nailbiter from the Airbender this evening. He hit Duran with a pitch with one out, but got Devers to pop up to left, then froze Kristian Campbell for strike three to notch his seventh save.
The rivalry series continues tomorrow with a pair of lefties who couldn't be any more different: soft-tossing sensation Ryan Yarbrough faces Boston's overpowering staff ace, Garrett Crochet. Yarbrough did get the better of top Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto last weekend though, so maybe he’ll work the magic again. FOX will get the broadcast, and the game is set to begin roughly when this one started, at 7:35pm ET.
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