Always Good to Sweep the Red Sox

Last night, I saw some Yankee Fans online saying that it's not as much fun beating the Boston Red Sox when they're a bad team.

They're so wrong. (How wrong are they?) It's always good to beat the Red Sox. The Scum will always be The Scum.

Jordan Montgomery started for the Yankees, and took a no-hitter into the 4th inning. He was boosted by a 2-out rally in the 2nd. Martin Perez, the Boston starter, hit Tyler Wade with a pitch. This was not the usual Red Sox "Let's hit the Yankees on purpose and try to injure them, because we know we can get away with it" maneuver. Aaron Hicks doubled Wade home, and then Luke Voit crushed a home run.

The Sox pulled a run back in the top of the 4th, but Thairo Estrada canceled that out by leading off the bottom of the 4th with a home run. Voit led off the bottom of the 5th with another homer. The Sox scored again in the 6th, but the Yanks got another leadoff homer in the 7th, from Hicks.

Aroldis Chapman, fully recovered from COVID-19, and wearing short sleeves that showed he'd really been working out, made his season debut, and it was a typical Chapman inning: Impressive in some moments, shaky in others. He got Alex Verdugo to line out, ut allows a triple to Jose Peraza, and an RBI double to Jonathan Arauz. Then he bore down, and struck Kevin Pillar and Rafael Devers out to end it.

Yankees 6, Red Sox 3. WP: Mike King (1-1, his 1st major league win). No save, because Chapman came in with a 4-run lead. LP: Perez (2-3). (UPDATE: Since the 2021 season, Mike King has usually been referred to as "Michael King.")

So we swept the Red Sox. That's always good. Especially when it's 4 straight, instead of the usual 3. In fact, it's our 10th straight win against them, going back to last season. The team record is 12 straight wins over the Red Sox, which happened in 1952 and '53.

Tonight, the Yankees begin a home series against the Tampa Bay Rays. Masahiro Tanaka starts against Blake Snell.

Orioles Had Their Moment vs. Yankees, But the Moment's Over

Early in the season, the Baltimore Orioles did some damage to the Yankees, and Yankee Fans online didn't like it, calling them variations on a lousy team. O's fans were snippy about it, telling us that they know their team is lousy, so we should let them enjoy it while they can.

I'm reminded of that exchange in Bull Durham:

Nuke (Tim Robbins): Can't you just let me enjoy the moment?
Crash (Kevin Costner): Moment's over.

Last night, the Yankees again struck early and often. They scored 4 runs in the top of the 2nd inning, including home runs by Thairo Estrada and DJ LeMahieu. Gleyber Torres, who has feasted on Oriole pitching, added a homer in the 3rd, Gary Sanchez added one in the 4th, and Torres hit another one in the 5th, to make it 7-2 New York.

Calling the game on Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, owned 2/3rds by the O's and 1/3rd by the Washington Nationals, former Yankees, Mets and Devils announcer Gary Thorne saw the 2nd Torres homer, his 12th of the year but his 10th against Baltimore, and said, "I don't even know."

It seemed like CC Sabathia was going to cruise to the 249th win of his career. But in the bottom of the 5th, he gave up 2 home runs, making it 7-5, and then told Aaron Boone that his knee was bothering him again.

Boone then used Tommy Kahnle in the 6th, Adam Ottavino in the 7th, Chad Green in the 8th and Aroldis Chapman in the 9th. KOGC. Can't make an anagram out of that, but it gave us 4 scoreless innings.

Yankees 7, Orioles 5. WP: CC (3-1). SV: Chapman (13). LP: Dan Straily (1-4).

This morning, CC was put on the 10-day Injured List. The best that we can hope for is that he'll miss only 1 start.

You know, Brian Cashman, Dallas Keuchel is still out there. He could give us some big moments yet to come.

But for the Orioles, their moment is over. Their next moment may not come for a long time. Because in spite of the ownage by Gleyber Torres, they are legally still owned by Peter Angelos, who's owned them for 26 years and has never won a Pennant.

Yankees Turn Out Rays' Lights

The Tampa Bay Rays are so bush-league.

"How bush-league are they, Uncle Mike?"

They're so bush-league, they haven't even paid their electric bill.

Masahiro Tanaka took the hill for the Yankees in the rubber game of a 3-game weekend series against the Rays, who were hanging on to 1st place in the American League Eastern Division. He got the job done, pitching 7 innings, allowing 1 run on 5 hits and no walks, striking out 7.

But no matter how well your starter pitches, you've got to score runs for him. The game was scoreless with 2 outs in the top of the 5th, but Austin Romine and Mike Tauchman hit back-to-back doubles, and DJ LeMahieu followed with an RBI single. That made it 2-0 Yankees.

The Yankees picked up a 3rd run in the 8th, and then came the power outage at Tropicana Field. A stadium designed to make rain delays impossible,  and we had a delay due to unplayable grounds anyway.

The delay ended up lasting 43 minutes. The Rays may now be wishing that power had not been restored. The Yankees added four runs in the top of the 9th, including a home run by rookie infield fill-in Thairo Estrada.

Zack Britton pitched a scoreless 8th, and Chad Green returned from the minor leagues, and pitched a perfect 9th. Yankees 7, Rays 1. WP: Tanaka (3-3). No save. LP: Blake Snell (3-4).

The Yankees are now just half a game out of 1st place in the AL East, 1 game behind the Rays in the all-important loss column.

They come home to play the Baltimore Orioles. When last these teams met, the injury crisis had just begun, and the Orioles handled the Yankees fairly easily. Fans were outraged, saying that we shouldn't lose to such a lousy team.

Since then, normal service has been restored, and the Orioles are in last place. And Aaron Hicks is going to be activated from the Injured List today, making the Yankees quite a bit more maneuverable, and possibly stronger.

Yankees Overthrow King Felix

Seattle Mariners pitcher Felix Hernandez is known as "King Felix." I don't know why: "Felix" suggests "cat," not royalty; and he's never appeared in a postseason game, much less won a title, like King (LeBron) James, 1930s Hall of Fame pitcher King Carl Hubbell, and 1880s Hall of Fame catcher Mike (King) Kelly.

It's not that he doesn't have great career stats. He's 169-131 despite pitching for a weak team most of his career, and he's got 2,498 strikeouts, a Cy Young Award, a perfect game, and 6 All-Star berths. He could end up in the Hall himself.

But last night, he was up against a pitcher who's not only had a better career, but may be better right now, despite being 6 years older: CC Sabathia, going for career win Number 248, in his 1st start since gaining strikeout Number 3,000. The Yankees backed CC up by once again overthrowing the "King." You might even say they crowned him.

They did so early. Luke Voit launched a 2-run home run off him in the 1st inning. Then came 4 runs in the 2nd, including a homer by Brett Gardner and the 1st major league home run by 23-year-old Venezuelan infielder Thairo Estrada, wearing Number 30. They tacked another run on in the 3rd, to make it 7-0.

And yet, both starting pitchers went just 5 innings. Although, in CC's case, it was less because he allowed 2 runs in the 4th and another in the 5th, and more because he hit the Holy Pitch Limit. But, between them, Jonathan Holder, Adam Ottavino, Zack Britton and Luis Cessa pitched 4 scoreless innings, allowing 2 hits and a walk.

Yankees 7, Mariners 3. WP: Sabathia (2-1). No save. LP: Hernandez (1-3).

The series continues tonight. Masahiro Tanaka starts against Marco Gonzales.