Napoli, Nava Power Sox Offense To Tie Series In New York

Friday night’s showing against CC Sabathia and the Yankees was a pretty miserable one as they only scored one run en route to their AL East lead being cut to one. However, the Red Sox rebounded with a fantastic offensive showing last night and even got a strong start out of an unlikely candidate. This game looked like it could be a high scorer just looking at the pitching matchup, as Felix Doubront (3-2, 5.29) took on Phil Hughes (2-3, 4.97). It was a high-scoring, but it wound up being pretty one-sided.

Doubront had his share of struggles early on, throwing 26 and 23 pitches respectively in the first two innings. He did settle down after that, however, and apart from allowing a run on a sacrifice fly from Chris Stewart in the fourth inning, Doubront pitched very well from then on. He wound up going 6 innings, allowing that run on 6 hits and 3 walks while striking out 6. The 25 year old southpaw lowered his ERA to a still mediocre 4.88 mark, and recorded his fourth consecutive quality outing for the Red Sox.

June 1, 2013; Bronx, NY, USA; Boston Red Sox first baseman

(right) celebrates a grand slam with designated hitter

(34), right fielder

(29) and left fielder

(37) against the New York Yankees during the third inning at Yankee Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Debby Wong-USA TODAY Sports

Phil Hughes’ outing was far from quality, though. He was fine through the first two innings, but the Red Sox bats really got going off of him in the third inning. Jackie Bradley Jr. (who had his first MLB three-hit game) started things off with a loud double over Brett Gardner in center field. Daniel Nava’s single advanced him to third and then Bradley would score on a barely fair double to left by Mike Carp. With runners on second and third with no outs, Dustin Pedroia struck out, bringing Joe Girardi to the question of the game: whether or not he would intentionally walk David Ortiz to load the bases. He opted to walk Ortiz, and payed dearly for it. After Mike Napoli had gone down 0-2, he worked the count to 2-2 and then unloaded on an outside fastball, driving it to the opposite field for a grand slam to make it 5-0.

Doubront allowed that run in the fourth to cut it to 5-1, and it stayed that way for a good while. When the eighth inning started, the Yankees decided to leave Adam Warren out for a second inning. Warren allowed singles to Jose Iglesias and Jackie Bradley Jr. before leaving a fastball up for Daniel Nava. Nava, who recorded his fourth hit of the night, crushed it into the right field bleachers to a similar place as Napoli’s had gone before to make it 8-1.

However, the Red Sox still weren’t done. For the ninth, Joe Girardi still left a clearly depleted Adam Warren out on the mound. After he struck out Mike Napoli to begin the frame, he allowed a home run to Stephen Drew then a double, single, and double to Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Jose Iglesias, and Jackie Bradley Jr. to make it 10-1. A groundout by Daniel Nava would push it to 11-1. That’s how the score would stay as the Red Sox put an absolute beating on the Yankees to push their AL East lead to two games.