Red Sox beat the Yankees 8-7 to complete the sweep

Christian Vazquez hit his first home run of the season in the 8th inning to give the Red Sox the lead.

David Price made his debut in the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry and even though he didn’t have his best stuff tonight, he still lead the Red Sox to a win that put them in first place of the American League East. The lefty allowed six runs on seven hits and seven innings of work, striking out only three batters.

Alex Rodriguez got the best from Price by hitting a two-run shot in the third inning and a two-RBI double in the fifth inning. However, Price got the Yankees’ slugger out in a crucial and intense at-bat in the seventh inning.

The Red Sox offense scored in the first inning with back-to-back singles from Dustin Pedroia and Mookie Betts. The Yankees had the lead 6-4 in the bottom half of the sixth when David Ortiz singled to open the inning. After Hanley Ramirez hit into a forceout, Travis Shaw hit his third home run of the year to tie the game 6-6. 

The score remained the same until the top half of the seventh. With Brock Holt on first base, two outs and Dellin Betances relieving Ivan Nova, Christian Vazquez hit a towering home run over the Green Monser to give the Red Sox an 8-6 lead. Before Sunday, the Red Sox catcher only had one home run at the Major League level.

Entering the series, Betances had a .90 ERA and left Fenway with a 3.09 in his numbers. He can thank a couple of two-run homers to Vazquez and Ortiz for that.

This was the first Yankees/Red Sox series of the year, and by winning three out of four against Atlanta and sweeping the Yankees, Boston is in first place after a full month of regular season. The Red Sox start a three-game series against the best team in the American League, the Chicago White Sox. They won’t be facing their ace Chris Sale or the resurging Matt Latos, but they will be a tough team to beat and probably the first test to see if the Red Sox are for real or not.

After facing the White Sox the Red Sox will travel to the Bronx for the first time this year. They will not be facing Aroldis Chapman, since he’s returning from his 30-game suspension on May 9th.

Even with all their deficiencies, the Red Sox ended April on a high note and started May with a promising future ahead of them. Let’s not forget that Carson Smith and Eduardo Rodriguez are returning in the next couple of days.

Game notes:

• Price leads the American League in strikeouts with 49.
• Craig Kimbrel is now tied with Wade Davis for saves with eight.
• The Red Sox are five games above .500 for the first time since 2013.
• Fenway crowd started a “Free Tom Brady” in the eighth inning.

It is still way too early to start worrying about Price. One of the arguments to dismiss his 14 strikeout game against the Braves was that he did it against one of the weakest lineups in baseball, and well the same could be said about the Yankees and they put six runs against him. However, there have been instances that could make you think that Price is close to pitching the way we are used to. For example, the intense out he recorded against A-Rod to end the seventh inning. The lefty will start pitching as the ace he is, but at the moment we are still waiting for that to happen.

The Red Sox offense came through again. Fueled by two home runs from Vazquez and Shaw, it’s still amazing how every single batter in the lineup doesn’t seem like an easy out. With the Blue Jays underperfoming, this offense can easily end up as the best in the American League.