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THE BEST RED SOX TEAM EVAH! ...
The Sox lose to the Yankees,
but not without a fight
April 11,
2018 ... In a matchup between clubs that have long
clashed, Tyler Austin rushed the mound after being hit by a pitch
from the Red Sox reliever, Joe Kelly, triggering a bench-clearing
brawl as New York ended Boston’s nine-game winning streak with a 10-7
victory. Austin slid spikes-first into shortstop Brock
Holt at second base in the third inning. No surprise,
the sides saw it differently. Four innings later, the Red Sox retaliated.
Gary Sanchez hit two home runs in a game that twice saw the benches empty
and a fight that resulted in four ejections. The benches cleared briefly in the
third after Austin’s spikes clipped Holt’s leg on a slide into second base. Holt
took issue with the contact and they exchanged words before being separated.
With the Yankees leading 10-6 in the seventh, Kelly nearly hit Austin with
an 0-1 pitch. Two pitches later, Kelly caught him on the side with a 98 mph
heater. Austin slammed his bat on the plate, threw it down and took four steps
toward the mound while hollering. Kelly waved Austin at him, and things quickly
got out of hand. Kelly hit Austin a couple of times, and the Yankees designated
hitter wound up with a swollen lip. Trying to hit Kelly, Austin instead tagged
Red Sox third base coach Carlos Febles.
The scuffle spilled across the field before it broke up in front of the
Boston dugout on the first base side, with Yankees sluggers Aaron Judge and
Giancarlo Stanton pushing the pile. Yankees hitting coach Marcus Thames used
both hands to shove Austin all the way across the infield toward the New York
dugout. Austin, Kelly, Yankees reliever Tommy Kahnle and third base coach Phil
Nevin were ejected.
Before the melee, there was some baseball. The Yankees scored four runs off
David Price (1-1) in the first inning before the lefty ace exited the game with
a tingling sensation in his pitching hand. Price was shaking his hand during the
inning. New York jumped on the Sox bullpen, adding four more runs over next
three innings.
Masahiro Tanaka (2-1) went five innings, yielding six runs. J.D.
Martinez hit a grand slam and Hanley
Ramirez homered for Boston. Sanchez drove in four runs
and Stanton had three hits and three RBIs. Aroldis Chapman gave up two hits and
a run on a wild pitch in the ninth, but got three outs to end the game.
The Sox' errorless streak to begin the season ended when catcher Christian
Vazquez’s attempt to stop Brett Gardner from stealing
second skipped into center field. Gardner advanced to third and scored on
Stanton’s single. Red Sox committed no errors in their first 10 games, the
franchise’s longest streak to begin any season. No other team since at least
1913 has begun a season with streak of 10 or more errorless games. |
