That helped Robles get out of the inning with no further damage, getting a pop up from Anthony Rizzo to keep the lead in hand. But in the next at bat, Judge hit a chopper to the left side with the infield in, and Rafael Devers got Gardner at the plate with the runner off on contact. He could not have gotten off to a worse start, throwing his first pitch to the backstop, bringing in the first run of the day for New York. That would mark the end of the afternoon for Pivetta, with Hansel Robles coming into a tough spot to try and hold this lead for Boston. That would be the start of trouble, as Brett Gardner followed it up with a double to put a pair in scoring position, still with just one out, and Aaron Judge coming to the plate. But the Red Sox couldn’t get the hit they needed to really open this one up, with Hernández and Renfroe both striking out to end the inning.Īs we made our way into the sixth, the Yankees were finally about to get their first baserunner since the second when Gio Urshela lined one just out of reach of a diving Xander Bogaerts. King got to a 1-2 count against Kiké Hernández, but yanked a breaking ball all the way to the backstop to make it a 2-0 game. José Iglesias was the first batter he faced, and while he barely made contact a little swinging bunt to the left side loaded up the bases for the top of the order. Kyle Schwarber started the inning with a base hit into right field, and after a deep fly ball from Bobby Dalbec was caught right in front of the wall, Plawecki knocked Cortes out of the game with a single of his own, bringing on Michael King with two on and one out. It was still a 1-0 game heading into the bottom half of the fifth, with Cortes still going for New York. On a 1-0 cutter just a bit down and in in the zone, Plawecki hit a no-doubter out to left field that hit off the stanchion for a solo homer, giving the Red Sox their first lead of the weekend. The backup catcher has cooled a bit at the plate after putting up a strong showing in the first half of the year in limited playing time, but he made an impact here. Whatever the process, it worked early at Fenway as the southpaw retired the first seven batters he faced.īut then the eighth batter came to the plate, and that was Kevin Plawecki. The Yankees lefty gets his share of strikeouts, but does it with a bit more finesse. The issue is that, after struggling most of the night on Friday against Gerrit Cole, they had trouble adjusting to a different kind of pitcher in Nester Cortes. And he only got stronger from there too, striking out the side in the fifth for a bit of added emphasis. He only kept cruising from there, and in fact would only give up that one baserunner through his first five innings of work. He’d come back from a hard-hit single that led off the second with three straight strikeouts for another scoreless frame. There weren’t any whiffs in his first inning of work, but he didn’t let a ball out of the infield in a perfect inning. The righty had some of the best stuff we saw all year from him, and with all of his pitches working he was able to keep New York off-balance all night long. Pivetta played that role deftly for most of his outing on Saturday. But the thing about a rollercoaster is it goes in both directions, and a good one does so at unpredictable times. There was a little bit of fair concern to that end coming into the game, as the righty has been an absolute roller coaster all year, and in his only matchup against the Yankees this season he got knocked out before completing a second inning of work. They just needed Nick Pivetta to come out and shove, and things would be looking up again.
It was a frustrating evening, and certainly far from the start they were looking for to this big series, but it was also just one game at the end of the day. On Friday night to start a huge series, the Red Sox not only watched their de facto ace of 2021 get hit around early and often, but also had to use a lot of their long relief depth in the process as well. The end result was a Giancarlo Stanton grand slam, a wildly frustrating loss, and a tie atop the wildcard race. Tanner Houck issued a big two-out walk to keep the inning alive, and then Alex Cora decided to bring in a wild Darwinzon Hernandez to try and finish out the inning with two men on. The Red Sox were ahead for most of the day on Saturday, looking to bounce back from a tough loss on Friday, but the eighth inning was just mired in mistakes.
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