And based on how the first three innings transpired Sunday, a split continued to appear improbable. The Yankees jumped on Nick Pivetta for a half-dozen runs through three innings and a 6-2 lead.
But the Sox offense erupted for 11 runs, the most allowed this year by the Yankees, who’d entered the series off to the best start of any American League pitching staff in the 50 years since the introduction of the designated hitter.
Sunday marked the continuation of a statement series by the offense, which proved unflinching against a rotation headlined by All-Stars Gerrit Cole and Nestor Cortes and a bullpen featuring waves of 98-102-mile-per-hour offerings anchored by closer Clay Holmes. The Sox secured back-to-back comeback wins against the Yankees, and scored 27 runs over the four games.
“That’s the game we play,” said Sox catcher Christian Vázquez. “We never quit. We always, always fight to the end and to the last out.”
That approach proved necessary with the Yankees jumping on Pivetta for two runs in each of the first three innings. Giancarlo Stanton’s hit a 114-m.p.h., opposite-field, two-run blast in the first (his 22nd of the year) that sent members of the Red Sox bullpen running for cover. After both teams scored two in the second (the Sox on a two-run Franchy Cordero homer to center), unemployed-turned-unstoppable masher Matt Carpenter launched a two-run shot in the third to put New York ahead, 6-2.
Circumstances for the Sox appeared grim. Pivetta lasted just 3⅓ innings in which he permitted six runs on eight hits while walking two and striking out five. While the righthander stabilized the threadbare Sox rotation for much of May and June, in his last two starts, he has given up 13 earned runs in nine innings. His ERA against the Yankees, Rays, and Blue Jays in six starts this year is 7.98.
“Nick didn’t have it today,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora.
But faced with a steep hole, the Sox continued their ongoing refusal to capitulate to the Yankees. Rookie Kaleb Ort — taken from the Yankees in the minor league Rule 5 draft in 2020 — held his former team scoreless for 1⅔ innings to settle the game and buy time for the Red Sox offense to awaken.
Vázquez delivered a solo homer (his fifth) in the third inning to make it 6-3. Two innings later, he nearly went deep again, but his long fly ball to left with a man on second and two outs instead banged high off the Wall for an RBI double that made it 6-4.
That double brought J.D. Martinez to the plate as the theoretical tying run — albeit amid his longest power outage since his offensive metamorphosis after the 2013 season. Yet Martinez wasted no time in ending that drought, jumping on a first-pitch cutter from Yankees starter Jameson Taillon and lining it into the Red Sox bullpen for his ninth homer of the year, resetting the game at 6-6.
“I’m hitting the ball hard — just doing something in my swing that’s causing me to not get the ball in the air as often as I like,” said Martinez. “All the guys were laughing inside [after the homer] because they know it’s been built up.”
Fenway — dormant to that point — erupted with the game-tying blast. The energy of the game had shifted, the Red Sox suddenly on the attack and the Yankees looking defensive.
That description held in the bottom of the sixth, with flamethrower Aroldis Chapman entering the game for his first sixth-inning appearance since 2017. Trevor Story’s leadoff pop-up clanged off the glove of Yankees second baseman DJ LeMahieu in shallow right for a leadoff single. Cordero and pinch-hitter Rob Refsnyder followed with walks to load the bases.
After a Bobby Dalbec strikeout, Chapman again induced weak contact, this time on a pop to shallow center from pinch-hitter Jeter Downs. But again, LeMahieu could not corral it. While right fielder Aaron Judge recovered LeMahieu’s misplay in time for a force at second, Story crossed the plate, putting the Sox up, 7-6.
The Sox — after a sharp seventh inning by Hirokazu Sawamura, who took advantage of an expansive interpretation of the strike zone by home plate ump Tripp Gibson, which resulted in a called strikeout of Stanton and an ejection for manager Aaron Boone — then blew the game open with a four-run bottom of the seventh. Story’s bases-loaded, three-run double off Miguel Castro catalyzed a celebration among the sellout crowd of 37,291.
The Sox’ four-game total of 27 runs in the series surpassed the 26 total runs that New York’s staff had allowed in the 10 games before coming to Boston.
Meanwhile, the Red Sox bullpen quartet of Ort (1⅔ innings), Sawamura (2), Matt Strahm (1), and Ryan Brasier (1) combined to shut out the Yankees over 5 2/3 innings.
“Sometimes stuff happens where bullpens have to pick up innings, and fortunately tonight, we held it down,” said Brasier.
In doing so, the Red Sox headed to Tampa Bay for a four-game series in possession of the top wild-card seed, 1½ games ahead of the Rays.
“We play in a tough division. We’ve been getting beat in the division. We know that,” said Cora. “But we feel like we can play with anybody.”
Alex Speier can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @alexspeier.
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism