The Boston Red Sox will try to extend their winning streak to four games when they face the visiting New York Yankees on Saturday.
Boston also has won three straight against New York, including a 2-1 victory in 10 innings Friday night. The victory improved Boston’s record in one-run games to 8-17 and to 5-8 in extra innings.
“In a sport where we believe in projecting numbers and this and that, at one point it has to turn around, right?” Boston manager Alex Cora said. “It has to even out. We’ve lost a lot of them. We’ve won extra-inning games, too. We’ve been in a lot of extra-inning games. We played well. We played clean baseball today. … It’s good to win the game. Now we have to try to win the series.”
The loss on Friday night ended New York’s three-game winning streak.
Aaron Judge the game Friday when he hit his 26th home run of the season in the ninth inning, but the breaks went Boston’s way after that. Two calls went against New York in the 10th inning: Anthony Volpe appeared to steal third with no outs, but the safe call was overturned after a replay review. Then a ball hit by DJ LeMahieu was called foul and the call was not overturned after the Yankees appealed.
New York manager Aaron Boone was ejected after voicing his objection to the call made on the ball LeMahieu hit. Then LeMahieu was ejected after making the final out in the 10th.
“It looked like Anthony on his slide the ground caught his arm so he couldn’t extend like he normally would, otherwise I think he’s safe easily,” Boone said. “And then fair ball down the line that they miss in real time and don’t have the courage to overturn, so that’s it.”
“The compete from our guys tonight I thought was awesome,” Boone continued. “And it was an awesome game to be in. Great environment. I thought the Red Sox played well. Obviously (Boston starter Garrett) Crochet was great. We were able to do enough to kind of hang around and almost pull it off. Really love the way the guys competed on a tough day.”
Despite Judge’s game-tying home run, Cora defended his decision to keep Crochet on the mound at the start of the ninth.
“It’s baseball, right?” Cora said. “And our guy was throwing great. He was efficient towards the end, and we gave him a shot. Didn’t work out, that’s why (Judge) is who he is, one of the best in the world. And he got one pitch down the whole night and he hit it out of the ballpark. You gotta tip your hat.”
Boston is expected to send right-hander Hunter Dobbins (3-1, 4.20 ERA) to the mound Saturday, and he’ll be trying to beat the Yankees for the second time in less than a week. Dobbins was credited with the win when the Red Sox beat the Yankees 11-7 last Sunday. He surrendered three runs on two home runs in five innings. That’s his only career appearance against New York.
Left-hander Carlos Rodon (8-4, 2.87) is New York’s probable pitcher. Rodon has a 4-5 record with a 4.29 ERA in 10 career starts against Boston. He gave up five runs on three hits and three walks in five innings and was the losing pitcher in the setback on Sunday.
-Field Level Media
