My brain is completely fried, all thanks to the Red Sox-Yankees 19-inning marathon tonight at Yankee Stadium. Thankfully, Boston (3-1 overall, 3-1 away) came out on top 6-5 after blowing three one-run leads in the ninth, 16th and 18th innings. New York (1-3 overall, 1-3 home) could be the worst team in the AL East so this would have been a terrible loss for the Red Sox. I doubt there has ever been many crazier fourth games of the regular season in MLB history since this also featured a needless 16-minute delay in the 12th when some lights went out.
Steven Wright (1-0) pitched the equivalent of a short start: five innings, two earned runs on six hits with one strikeout and three walks. He blew it in the 16th as Mark Teixeira tied it at four with a towering home run to left field (his second of the season) and in the 18th on Carlos Beltran's RBI double. Rookie Mookie Betts provided the winning run with a sacrifice fly in the 19th that scored Xander Bogaerts (4 for 8 with walk, stolen base).
Wade Miley's Red Sox debut was a good one, well at least until the sixth inning when he allowed an RBI single to Alex Rodriguez (yes, that loser) and sacrifice fly by Brian McCann which cut it to 3-2 Boston. Miley went 5.2 innings, allowing the two earned runs on four hits with six strikeouts and two walks. He works exceptionally quick and he's a lefty that doesn't throw hard with a beard, so I'll call him Mark Buehrle lite.
Seven Red Sox relievers appeared between Miley and Wright. Some highlights: Robbie Ross got the last two outs in the sixth, Alexi Ogando had a 1-2-3 seventh, Junichi Tazawa pitched a scoreless eighth, Anthony Varvaro got four outs in his Red Sox debut, Tommy Layne recorded five outs (including three strikeouts) and Craig Breslow had two clean innings.
Pablo Sandoval hadn't done much in the three-game opening series at Philadelphia so it was nice to see him come through with a 4-for-9 night with RBI singles in the first and 18th. Daniel Nava's two-run single in the sixth gave Boston that short-lived 3-0 cushion. Yankees starter Nathan Eovaldi (formerly of the Marlins) seems like your classic guy that throws hard but doesn't really know how to pitch. He was charged with three earned runs on eight hits in 5.1 innings of work.
Hanley Ramirez was 3-for-9 at the plate which was good but he made a poor read on a play in left field (get used to that) and also got gunned down at third by a mile following Sandoval's clutch single in the 18th. You just know that he is going to be super frustrating to watch every day.
The Edward Mujica as closer joke went as expected in 2015 with Chase Headley hitting a bomb off him in the ninth that sent it to extra innings. It sounds like Koji Uehara could be back by Monday for Opening Day at Fenway and not a moment too soon even though this was Mujica's first save chance of the young season.
Perhaps the craziest part of this whole silly event is that the game on Saturday happens to be in the afternoon (1:05, NESN) so sleep fast fellas! Joe Kelly opposes Adam Warren which doesn't inspire any thoughts of a pitcher's duel or anything of the sort but another four-hour plus contest.
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