Red Sox 5, Yankees 3

 

Oh. My. God. They actually did it, those crazy bastards! The last-place Boston Red Sox crawled into the belly of the beast, deep into the darkest recesses of the urban hellhole that is the Bronx, and won the first game game, 5-3, of the weekend series against the Yankees. 

Willson Contreras did a lot of the heavy lifting, hitting an RBI single in the third that brought Duran home, but not before Wilyer Abreu's ground out with the bases loaded that same inning scored Wong. Contreras later put an exclamation mark on the game with a two-run homer in the fifth. Monasterio also hit a homer, a solo blast in the fourth.

Starting pitcher Sonny Gray gave up three runs on eight hits, including two homers, over 6⅓ innings. He only got three K's, but generally kept the Yankees from scoring. The bullpen was perfect - no runs and no hits - although Chapman walked two, putting the potentially tying run on base, because he likes to make his ninth inning appearances needlessly interesting. 

Tampa Bay won last night so the Sox are still 11 games out of first place, but Toronto lost so at least we picked up a game on the fucking Jays.

Tonight, Ranger Suarez (2-3, 3.38) will start for Boston. Back in April, Suarez gave up five hits to the Yankees in Fenway, including a three-run homer in the first. However, he struck out four batters over 4⅔ innings before getting pulled. He'll be opposed by the Yankees' Will Warren (7-1, 3.22), who missed a start in April's Fenway series.  However, he's a  career 1-2 against Boston, and in his last start against the Sox last September, gave up six first-inning runs, including a solo homer to Carlos Narváez. However, Connor Wong (.264) is expected to catch today for Suarez instead of the struggling Narváez (.214).