NEW YORK – Four-game sweeps are hard.
Four-game sweeps on the road are near-impossible.
At least, that’s the case for the Red Sox, who last swept the Yankees in a series longer than three games 31,458 days ago.
July 9, 1939.
After taking the first three games of the long weekend in the Bronx, the Red Sox were finally kept down by their rivals. The Yankees triumphed 7-2 to avoid being swept on their own diamond and pick up their first win against the Red Sox after an eight-game losing streak.
Dustin May worked out of an immediate jam in the bottom of the first, but the Yankees came back with a vengeance every inning thereafter. They tallied just seven hits in the contest, but Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Trent Grisham each homered twice.
Facing the Bronx Bombers for the first time in his career, May managed to pitch into the fifth, but yielded five earned runs on five hits, including three home runs, all to right-center. Chisholm Jr.’s two-run blast, his 100th career home run, got the Yankees on the board before May could record an out in the second inning. Grisham took the Red Sox starter over 400-feet deep twice.
Asked how he would characterize his performance, May bluntly answered, “Bad.”
Manager Alex Cora spotlighted his starter’s fastball command.
“It was kind of everything,” said May. “Just generally bad.”
In his previous outing, a two-run six-inning effort against the Orioles earlier in the week, May felt he didn’t have control of some of his pitches. Sunday the issue was location, he explained, not command.
“(Control) was fine, I just threw ’em bad parts of the plate,” he said. “They were strikes, it was just not good strikes… they hit honey-hole pitches, and I threw a lot of ’em, so I think they did their job.”
New York scored at least once per inning between the second and fifth. The Red Sox were scoreless through five.
After struggling through two starts against Boston in June, Carlos Rodón was a much tougher customer on Sunday. Though he matched his season-high five walks and only struck out three, he incurred just two earned runs on one hit in 5.2 innings.
Like May, Rodón worked around traffic in the first. Nate Eaton’s pop-out stranded Alex Bregman (single) and Trevor Story (hit-by-pitch).
The Yankees southpaw faced the minimum three batters in each of the subsequent four innings.
In the sixth, Rodón unraveled: back-to-back one-out walks to Romy Gonzalez and Bregman. Yankees fans booed as Rodón walked Trevor Story to load the bases, then did a 180 and gave him a standing ovation seconds later as he walked back to the dugout after manager Aaron Boone made a pitching change.
Nathaniel Lowe’s pinch-hit single to shallow center, off Luke Weaver, plated Boston’s only two runs of the game.
The Red Sox tallied five hits all night. They went 1 for 6 with runners in scoring position, and left seven men on base.
Buehler in the bullpen
The last time Walker Buehler made a relief appearance, it was a 1-2-3 ninth inning to clinch the ‘24 World Series for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Same place, same role for Buehler, who entered from the bullpen for the first time as a Red Sox, with two outs in the bottom of the sixth and induced a one-pitch pop-out to com
Buehler worked around a one-out walk to Grisham in the seventh by striking out Aaron Judge and Ben Rice, but the Yankees batted around again in the eighth. Chisholm Jr.’s second home run of the game, after a Paul Goldschmidt one-out single, brought the Yankees’ margin back up to five.
Facts and figures
The Red Sox are 71-60, including 8-2 against the Yankees, 23-16 against the American League East, and 23-19 in series finales.
Boston is 23-41 when opponents score first, 16-41 when they score less than four runs, and 6-41 when they trail after the sixth inning.
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