What better way to heal the fresh wounds provided by yesterday's Celtics loss than a weekend sweep of the Yankees?
The Red Sox (12-6) won their tenth in a row, 4-1 last night at Fenway and in the process won the third and final game of the three game set vs. New York (9-9).
Friday night featured Jason Bay's two-run tying homer off Mariano Rivera then Kevin Youkilis' walk-off shot in the 11th. Saturday was an 16-11 marathon victory. Last night was pretty dull for the most part except for one play in particular.
Jacoby Ellsbury (2 runs, hit, 2 stolen bases) deftly stole home plate in the fifth inning as Andy Pettitte (2-1) and Jorge Posada didn't notice/took too long to throw home and tag Ellsbury. That gave Boston a 3-1 lead that was given one last boost on the next pitch as J.D. Drew doubled home David Ortiz.
Brett Gardner gave the Yanks a 1-0 lead in the third with a sacrifice fly. Ortiz tied it with a sac. fly of his own in the third before giving Boston the lead with an RBI double in the three-run fifth.
Justin Masterson improved to 2-0 with one earned run in 5.1 innings. He gave up four hits, one walk and struck out four.
Last night served as a reminder why the Red Sox have become baseball's model franchise while the Yankees continue to falter in the new millennium, no matter how much money they spend.
Boston obviously spends a ton of dough too but they've developed a top-notch farm system. Home-grown talent like Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia, Youkilis, Jonathan Papelbon, Masterson, Jon Lester, et. al have proven to be great Major League players.
New York gets the big names but they fail to produce at the same level that they used to or they disappear in October (see: A-Rod).
Since the bullpen was so taxed from the weekend, rookie Michael Bowden was called up. All he did was pitch a scoreless seventh and eighth after another rookie, Hunter Jones, got the last two outs in the sixth. Takashi Saito got the save since Papelbon had the night off.
The Yankees will get better whenever A-Rod returns but they still have the worst middle relievers in baseball. It's like they don't realize anything from past mistakes.
Boston hits the road for nine games, starting with three in Cleveland beginning tonight.
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