Does it count more now?
For over a week and despite an 8-1 start, fans have endured nagging question about just how “real” this Red Sox team is. Boston was off to a historical start to the season, but questions lingered given the quality of their opponents.
But on Tuesday—at least for a day—the Red Sox made it clear that they’re built to compete, pounding the Yankees in an unyielding 14-1 attack. The game marked just the seventh time since at least 1908 that New York lost to Boston by a 13-run margin or more. Their six unearned runs allowed was their most since July 14, 2011 at Toronto.
Routinely-dominant Chris Sale, now in his second year with the Sox, earned his first win against New York in a Boston uniform. Though 4-4 with a 1.75 ERA in 15 career games against the Bombers, Sale was 0-3 in five starts against them in 2017, his first with the Sox, including going 0-2 in three of those games at Fenway.
On Tuesday, Sale allowed eight hits (all but one were singles) over 6.0 innings. He walked no one and punched out eight, allowing just one earned run, a solo shot by the formidable Aaron Judge, who entered the game 0-for-12 lifetime against Sale.
Red Sox offense was hot right out of the gate. Mookie Betts, the lead story in a rich night of Sox offense, belted a lead-off double for a third straight game. Betts would go on to enjoy a historical night at Fenway, becoming the first big leaguer with five runs against the Yankees since Luis Castillo nearly ten years ago.
Now, some additional notes on last night’s game.
- Sale is the first Sox starter to work 6.0+ innings against the Yankees with no walks, no more than one extra-base hit, and no more than one run allowed since Wednesday’s starter, David Price, last July 16. Before Price, the last Boston pitcher with such a game was Jon Lester on August 9, 2009.
- Betts is the seventh player ever to score a record five runs against the Yankees and the first Red Sox player to achieve that feat since at least 1908.
- Betts had a single, two doubles, and a grand slam. It was his 11th career game with three or more extra-base hits, tying him with Nomar Garciaparra and Dwight Evans for fifth-most such games in club history after David Ortiz (21 games), Ted Williams (19), Bobby Doerr (13) and Carl Yastrzemski (12).
- Betts’ grand slam was the first by the Red Sox since Jarrod Saltalamacchia‘s on September 13, 2013, also at Fenway.
- Betts is the first Red Sox with four or more hits, RBI, and runs scored against the Yankees since at least 1908. The last player of any team to do that against New York was the Tigers Brennan Boesch on April 3, 2011.
- Boston’s first three batters, Betts, Andrew Benintendi, and Hanley Ramírez, were a combined 8-for-9 (.889) with 8 runs, 3 doubles, a triple, home run, 9 RBI, and 4 walks.
- Ramírez added three RBI Tuesday for the club lead this season (11). Ramírez now has five multi-hit, multi-RBI games this season. No other MLB player has more than three such games.
- Ramírez is the only Boston batter in the last 100 years with multiple hits and multiple RBI in five of the team’s first 10 games.
- The Yankees had not allowed 14+ opponent runs since a 1-15 loss against the Astros on August 25, 2015.
- The Red Sox exploded for nine runs in the 6th inning, their most since scoring 10 in the ninth inning at the Twins last May 7. The last time Boston scored that many runs in one inning against the Yankees was May 31, 1998 (11 runs in the ninth).
- Boston has not committed an error in any of their first 10 games, the longest streak by any major league team to begin a season since at least 1940.