NEW YORK– After the New York Yankees outlasted the Boston Red Sox in the first game of a double header on Tuesday afternoon by a score of 5-3, the Bronx Bombers followed it up in the night cap with a nail biting 2-0 victory to move ahead of the Red Sox in the wild card standings by percentage points. What makes this remarkable is that New York was 10 1/2 games back of the first place Red Sox on July 5th, but the Yankees have gone 26-11 since then. It sure feels like these two teams are neck and neck and it will certainly be a race to the finish line.
The only two runs for New York in the second game came from solo home runs, one by Luke Voit in the second inning and one by Giancarlo Stanton in the fourth inning. Yankees starting pitcher Luis Gil had his third consecutive scoreless start as he went 4 2/3 innings, only giving up three hits and striking out four. Gil also has not allowed a run in 15 2/3 innings in the MLB. That is the longest stretch to start a career for the Yankees since at least 1961. The only previous player that came close one was Joba Chamberlain who went 15 1/3 innings in 2007. However, Gil did run into trouble in the fifth inning by giving up two singles and a walk , which led to manager Aaron Boone bringing in Wandy Peralta, who was able to get out of trouble by getting Rafael Devers to ground out into a fielders choice with two outs. Boston also had runners on the corners in the sixth inning with two outs, but New York got out of trouble as pinch hitter Bobby Dalbec hit a comebacker right off of Peralta’s shoulder, who was then able to quickly field it and fire to first to retire Dalebc by a step to avoid any runs for Boston. Chad Green entered in the seventh inning to get the save and give the Yankees a 2-0 victory.
These two teams will play the final game of a three game set tonight at Yankee Stadium as Andrew Heany will start for the Yankees, who will go up against Nick Pivetta for the Red Sox at 7:05pm.
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