Red Sox bats continue to dominate Yankees pitching

Jim Monaghan
Content Coordinator

A week ago, this was probably unthinkable.

The Red Sox had just come off a 1-2 weekend series against the brutally bad Orioles and were staring at a string of 14 straight games against the Rays and Yankees, the two teams they were looking up at in the American League Eastern Division standings.

Photo courtesy of USA Today
Following Saturday afternoon's 9-5 dismantling of New York, the Red Sox have won five of their last six games, moved into second place in the division, and have whittled the deficit with the Yankees to single digits in the loss column.

Saturday's victim was C.C. Sabathia who was lit up for five runs on nine hits including a pair of home runs in 4.1 innings of work.

Rafael Devers, Andrew Benintendi, and Sam Travis led the Red Sox with three hits apiece; Benintendi (PIctured) and J.D. Martinez provided long balls off Sabathia, who may have made his final career start at Fenway Park.

Mookie Betts was the only starter without a hit as Boston pounded out 15 hits.

Eduardo Rodriguez improved to 13-4 with the win. He went 5.2 innings allowing three runs on seven hits and three walks. Matt Barnes finished the sixth and pitched through the seventh recording strikeouts for all four outs and Brandon Workman worked a clean ninth inning striking out a pair.

The only bullpen hiccup was Nathan Eovaldi who was touched for two runs in the eighth on three hits. He struck out two but clearly hasn't found his rhythm yet since returning from the injured list following elbow surgery.

Chris Sale will take the mound for Boston tonight. Expect a run on brooms in the Fenway area as the Red Sox look for a sweep of the four-game series.

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