Red Sox 6, Yankees 3. And Cam Schlittler's line from Thursday night at Fenway reads: 5 innings, 4 runs, zero earned. In any other context, that's a quality start. On this particular Thursday night, it was still a loss.
Four New York Yankees errors in one game. Four. The Red Sox didn't beat the Bronx's best young starter so much as the Yankees handed Boston a win one botched grounder at a time.
The Fifth Inning Was the Whole Game
The Yankees came in leading 2-0 and Schlittler had been dealing -- seven strikeouts through four innings, limiting Boston to scattered contact, keeping the lineup off-balance. Then the fifth happened, and it happened fast.
Amed Rosario fumbled a grounder that should've been a simple fielder's choice, letting Masataka Yoshida score from third. That's one of four errors on the night. Jarren Duran followed with a sac fly to left, and just like that it was tied at two. Then Caleb Durbin -- who reportedly dislocated his left pinkie the day before and somehow played Thursday anyway (why, exactly, is a question worth asking) -- turned on a Schlittler pitch and put it over the Monster. Two runs, 344 feet, 91.4 mph off the bat. Red Sox led 4-2 and they didn't look back.
Schlittler threw 9 more pitches after that. The game was already decided.
He finished with nine strikeouts, two walks, and the loss. His record drops to 8-4. The run prevention was real -- Schlittler gave the team every reasonable chance to win this game. The defense didn't return the favor.
Goldschmidt Was the Best Yankee on the Field
Paul Goldschmidt had a legitimate night. He doubled off Connelly Early in the very first at-bat of the game to open things up, and eventually scored on a Jasson Domínguez single through the infield. Later, with the Yankees trailing 4-3 in the seventh, Goldschmidt grounded out to score Jazz Chisholm Jr. from third -- a legitimately professional at-bat to pull the game within one (and briefly make this feel like a real game again). Two hits, a walk, an RBI, the highest WPA of any Yankee on the night. He was fine.
The problem is that everything after the seventh inning fell apart. Yerry De los Santos came on in the eighth, walked the leadoff batter and allowed a single -- just 0.1 innings -- and left the bases loaded for Ryan Yarbrough, who inherited the mess and couldn't get out of it. Two runs scored on a hit-by-pitch and a fielder's choice, both on De los Santos's tab. Padded the lead to 6-3. Aroldis Chapman strolled through a quiet ninth for his 15th save of the year.
Caballero's HR Was Actually Great
José Caballero deserves a separate mention even though the game ultimately didn't go the Yankees' way. In the fourth, he got a fastball from Early and absolutely scorched it -- line drive to left center, 400 feet, 103.2 mph off the bat, his eighth home run of the year. Pure contact. The kind of swing you want every hitter in the lineup making.
It pushed the lead to 2-0. It looked like it might be enough. It wasn't, but the swing itself was not the problem.
Early Was Genuinely Good
Credit Connelly Early. Six innings, two earned runs, nine strikeouts -- his highest strikeout total in a start this season. The Yankees had hit Early comfortably earlier in the year, so the Red Sox knew what they were getting into starting him here. He more than answered. He consistently worked ahead in counts, punched out the middle of the order repeatedly, and made the Yanks earn every base runner they got.
He's 7-5. Probably not the guy Boston envisioned carrying a game against the division leaders, but he did it.
A Notch in Boston's Belt
This was the Red Sox's first win over the Yankees at Fenway this season. The Yanks swept them in Boston back in April. Thursday was their chance to do something about it -- and they didn't blow it so much as dismantle their own bullpen fence from the inside.
The Yankees are 48-33, still 1.5 games ahead in the AL East, and have three more games at Fenway starting Friday. Losing Game 1 to a team 14.5 games back isn't a crisis. Losing it with four errors behind a starter who punched out nine batters -- that's the kind of thing you can't let become a habit.
The series isn't over. It's just not starting the way anyone wanted.
Jimmy writes the Bronx Pinstripes game recap after every Yankees game. Beat-reporter pacing, fan's heartbeat. He calls opposing players by last name and has no patience for dead-air innings.
