I personally was not surprised by anything that transpired over the course of this four game series. As I wrote in my series preview, the Red Sox are simply a better team than the Yankees. Through these four games, the Sox proved to be far too much for the Yankees, from the front office all the way down to the bench players.
Before we get into the weekend’s best plays, I’d be remiss to not highlight Sunday’s series finale that feature Price’s best start against the Yankees in a Red Sox uniform.
For the second straight start, Price was in a tight duel with the opposing pitcher, this time Tanaka, who gave the only impressive Yankee performance to come out of the weekend. And for the second straight time, Price dug down and gave the Red Sox a chance to win.
As we all know, this wasn’t the main story from Sunday, however. The story was the bullpens for both teams. The two bullpens allowed 8 of the 9 runs last night, including the two runs charged to Price in the seventh, which Hembree allowed to cross the plate.
No runs were more important and demoralizing to the Yankees and their fans, however, than those collected off of Chapman.
The @RedSox 3-run 9th inning comeback vs. Yankees:
– Strikeout
– Walk
– Walk
– Strikeout
– Walk
– 2-RBI single (J.D. Martinez)
– Run scores on Miguel Andújar throwing error pic.twitter.com/KNVsxqchlk— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) August 6, 2018
Chapman now has two blown saves this season, both to the Red Sox. The haters will say that the Yankees won his first blown save so it doesn’t matter, but the blown saves don’t tell the whole story. The Red Sox own a 30,000-square foot luxurious mansion in the Yankees closer’s head.
Aroldis Chapman career vs #RedSox:
0-2, 17 G, 16.1 IP, 14 H, 13 R, 11 ER, 6.15 ERA, 15 BB’s, 4 blown saves.
— Ryan Spagnoli (@Ryan_Spags) August 6, 2018
No Bueno.
If you’re the Yankees, you have to be wondering what it takes to beat the Sox. The answer is they can’t. There’s no more moves to be made this season and the roster as is, is not to the caliber of the Red Sox.
Just by looking at the Yankees record this season in the AL East you can tell that they don’t have the balls to pull out tough wins.
Red Sox and Yankees vs AL East
Red Sox – (36-14, .720) – (+74) Run Diff
Yankees – (26-23, .531) – (+36) Run Diff
Red Sox are 9.5 games better in intra division games
Red Sox have an 8.5 game lead in the division
THEY ALL COUNT
details pic.twitter.com/MvV0I8qTJc
— Boston Sports Info (@bostonsportsinf) August 5, 2018
These numbers are prior to Sunday’s game, but were only backed up by the performance. No matter how bad the other teams may be, divisional games are tough due to the exposure to the other team. Good teams find ways to win those games and the Yankees have not.
In the end of the day, it has become a top-to-bottom coward mentality that has derailed the Yankees this season. It’s clear at this point that the change at manager was one of the worst decisions New York has made since the Ellsbury deal. Boone instills zero confidence in the team and quits just as abruptly as his players do.
I mean really, Holder in the bottom of the 10thto try and salvage one game out of four in Boston? If that’s not a manager quitting, I don’t know what is. Seriously, this is the same Holder responsible for the best inning the Red Sox have had in a very long time.
Start the video at 3:52 to see the carnage.
There isn’t too much more to be said about the Yankees short comings, other than they aren’t exposed without some big dick energy from the Red Sox.
Here are the top plays from the weekend to close out this blog as well as the race for the AL East crown.
Steve Pearce rocked 3 (!!!) HRs to help blow out the Yankees 15-7 at Fenway. pic.twitter.com/NqNobXVDAA
— ESPN (@espn) August 3, 2018
https://twitter.com/takeyourbasepod/status/1025568901197901824
33rd home run of the season for JD Martinez. pic.twitter.com/8PPFz6zzkK
— Brendan Campbell (@brendan_camp) August 4, 2018
https://twitter.com/HeartofMLB/status/1026420936692654081
Damage.