Red Sox record 18 hits, topple Yankees 10-6

Spring Training’s first Red Sox-Yankees match-up is in the books. Boston left George M. Steinbrenner Field on Wednesday victorious after an action-packed 10-6 win over New York.

Old friend Chris Capuano, who pitched in 28 games for the Red Sox last season, got the start for the Yankees, giving him a chance to do battle against his former team. However, in an interesting turn of events, the Springfield native suffered a right quad strain on his way to cover first on a Brock Holt ground out and left the game after throwing only seven pitches. Nick Rumbelow replaced Capuano and gave up the first hit of the game to none other Allen Craig before striking out Bryce Brentz for the third out of the inning.

The Red Sox got on the board first when Travis Shaw laced a home run off Andrew Miller, another former Red Sox pitcher, in the third inning. Shaw drove in two more runs in the fourth when he smacked a double to center off of right-hander Bryan Mitchell. As Mitchell rode the struggle bus through the inning, Shaw stole third before reaching home on a Jeff Bianchi line drive to left field. Mitchell managed to limit the Red Sox to four runs when he stuck out Craig to end the inning.

Joe Kelly dominated on the mound for Boston in the first inning, which he concluded with a 97 mph fastball to Carlos Beltran. Kelly also cruised through the second, but ran into a bit of trouble in the third inning. The Yankees managed to put together a two-out, two-run rally, but Kelly got out of the jam when Brian McCann grounded out with two runners on base.

Brandon Workman started the fourth inning and gave up Alex Rodriguez’s first home run since his return to the Yankees. With that out of the way, Workman got out of the inning without doing any further damage.

Boston scored again the seventh when Garin Cecchini doubled to drive in Christian Vazquez. The Yankees answered in the bottom of the inning when Cecchini botched a ground ball from Jonathan Galvez and the error allowed Mason Williams to score from second. The Red Sox did not take this lying down and Luke Montz delivered a two-run homer in the eighth to up the lead and bring the score to 9-4. A decent rally produced another run for Boston. Steven Wright then gave up a two-run bomb in the bottom of the ninth, but he was lucky his team had a productive offensive day so it wasn’t a big deal.

Clay Buchholz gets the start tomorrow against A.J. Burnett and the Pittsburgh Pirates.