When you are facing Vidal Nuno and his 5.88 ERA you have reason for optimism as an offense. The Red Sox had little reason for optimism as it turns out, as the Red Sox managed little against Nuno: two hits and two walks in 5.2 innings. The Yankees pushed across the first run in the bottom of the first on a Mark Teixeira sacrifice fly after Jacoby Ellsbury‘s double had sent Derek Jeter to third, who had started things with a single with one out.
The next three Yankee runs came on a pair of home runs from Kelly Johnson and Brett Gardner in the fourth inning. Brandon Workman gave the Red Sox seven innings without allowing anything else to come across, but it didn’t much matter at that point with the state of the Red Sox offense tonight. Brian McCann added a no-doubt two run home run off Craig Breslow in the eighth to round out the scoring.
The three Red Sox rallies amounted to getting runners to second. In the third inning, Brock Holt doubled with one out but Dustin Pedroia and David Ortiz could not get him in. In the sixth, Ortiz and Mike Napoli walked. Pinch hitter Daniel Nava grounded to third to end that threat. Stephen Drew broke out of his 0 for 29 slump with a ground rule double to left in the 7th, but Jackie Bradley Jr. struck out to end the inning.
The Red Sox will attempt to rebound tomorrow night as they send Jon Lester(8-7, 3.11) against Masahiro Tanaka (11-2, 2.11) at 7:05 p.m.