Red Sox blow late lead to fall to Yankees

Yankees 6, Red Sox 5 (12 innings)

The Red Sox took a 4-0 lead into the seventh and fell apart late.

The Yanks are now 8-0 against the Red Sox this season.

“Streaks and stuff, they don’t matter to me,” manager Ron Roenicke said. “We played a really good ballgame.”

The takeaways:

1. The Red Sox are actually playing better baseball

There’s no question about it.

They’re still 7-6 over their last 12. They’ve found some decent starting pitching with Nathan Eovaldi back in the rotation and Tanner Houck making an impressive debut.

And Martin Perez really shined in this one. His sinker was dominant as he struck out seven batters in six scoreless innings, allowing just three walks. All seven strikeouts were looking. It was as if the Yankees were expecting him to use his changeup as an out pitch, but Perez kept throwing sinkers and the Yanks kept watching them go by for strike three.

He’s now got a 3.88 ERA and the Sox have won the last two games started by Perez.

The defense was impressive, with Christian Arroyo making a beautiful sliding catch in shallow right field and Xander Bogaerts continuing his great season on defense at shortstop.

And the Sox finally look like they have a back end of the bullpen with Ryan Brasier and Matt Barnes locking things down in the eighth and ninth for the better of the last few weeks.

But Barnes left a hanging curveball on a 0-1 pitch to Gary Sanchez with two outs in the ninth that allowed the Yanks to tie the game.

“It wasn’t that bad of a curveball,” Roenicke said of the pitch, which was belt-high at 84 mph. “Sanchez just did a great job of looking for it and not missing it.”

And though Ryan Weber looked solid in relief behind Barnes, using a guy with a career 5.07 ERA (Weber) as your go-to reliever in extra innings against your division rivals isn’t ideal.

The Yanks scored in the 11th and the 12th to put the Sox away in this one.

2. Christian Arroyo, again?

Arroyo is loving life in Boston after getting claimed off waivers from the Cleveland Indians in August. The Red Sox are his fourth team in four years, and evidently his favorite.

Arroyo hammered a hanging changeup from Jordan Montgomery to break a scoreless game in the fourth inning. The three-run jack gave the Sox life and marked the third homer for Arroyo in 11 days since he was added to the active roster. He also hit the game-tying RBI single in the bottom of the 11th to extend the game temporarily.

He continues to hammer the ball with elite exit velocity. He’s playing an outstanding second base. And he must be giving Chaim Bloom some positive feelings going into the offseason.

Bloom has acquired Arroyo twice now, once as part of the Rays front office when they traded for him in 2017, and once in August. The former first-round pick could be a late bloomer at 25 years old and the Sox are giving him a chance to play regularly down the stretch.

3. Darwinzon Hernandez is back

And the Red Sox threw him right into the fire, handing him the seventh inning with a 4-0 lead.

Hernandez threw in the low-90s (he’s usually in the mid-late-90s) and struggled to get outs. He walked two, allowed a single to Aaron Hicks and the Sox had seen enough.

Hernandez hasn’t pitched in three weeks as he’s dealt with both complications from the coronavirus and a sprained SC joint. He’s still one of the organization’s premier young pitchers and they’re hoping to see him gain confidence in the final two weeks.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/35LRP41