The Boston Red Sox

Monday, August 5, 2019

* The Boston Globe

Make it a sweep: Yankees hammer David Price, push Sox skid to eight

Peter Abraham

It was only a week ago, after the Red Sox took three of four games from the Yankees at Fenway Park, that

anything seemed possible over the final two months of the season.

The Sox were well positioned in the wild-card race and had a chance of tracking down the Yankees in the

American League East.

Once they picked up a relief pitcher or two at the trade deadline — as seemed obvious would be the case — it would get even more interesting.

Now, after a 7-4 loss against the Yankees on Sunday night, it’s seemingly a question of how far this team

will fall and if anyone will lose their job as a result.

All that in just a week.

David Price added to the mounting misery by giving up seven runs before he came out of the game in the

third inning. That sent the Sox to their eighth consecutive loss.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do. We’re in a big hole,” manager Alex Cora said.

The losing streak is the longest for the Sox since 2015. At 59-55 — that’s one more loss than all of last

season — the Sox are 14½ games behind the Yankees in the division after a four-game series sweep.

In the only race that matters that matters at this point, the Sox are 6½ games behind Tampa Bay for the

second wild card.

“I know it’s something that a lot of people didn’t expect, to go on a bad run like this, but it happens in this

game, man,” said shortstop Xander Bogaerts, who went hitless in 15 at-bats in series.

“We played them so many times and it just seemed like they made the adjustment quicker.”

Price was the latest Red Sox starter to stumble, giving up six consecutive hits in the third inning as the

Yankees scored six runs to take a 7-0 lead.

“I just couldn’t make a pitch to get out of it,” said Price, who rejoined the team Saturday night following

the birth of his second child Thursday.

Sox pitchers have allowed 55 earned runs over 68 innings in the losing streak with the starting pitchers

giving up 44 of them over only 37⅓ innings.

“Overall, a horrible week,” Cora said.

As they return to Fenway on Monday, the Sox have not lost nine straight since a 10-game losing streak

from May 15-25, 2014.

That team, also a defending World Series champion, fell out of contention quickly and the result was a

trade-deadline fire sale that saw Jon Lester, Andrew Miller, and John Lackey among those shipped out of

town.

This team has collapsed since the deadline passed Wednesday without president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski making any additions. The Sox have been outscored 43-21 since.

Cora doesn’t believe Dombrowski’s inaction affected the team, all evidence to the contrary.

“I don’t think so. I just think we didn’t hit; we didn’t pitch; we didn’t play well,” he said. “That’s it. I don’t

think it has to do with making trades or not making trades.”

The Red Sox finished the season 1-8 at Yankee Stadium and were swept in a four-game series at Yankee

Stadium for the first time since Aug. 6-9, 2009.

With the Yankees holding a 1-0 lead, Price had a runner on first with two outs in the third inning. That’s

when he caved in.

Gio Urshela hit a flat changeup out to left-center for his 12th homer. Five of the six hits that inning had exit

velocities of 95 miles per hour or better.

“It snowballed on us,” Cora said.

Cameron Maybin had an RBI double and Mike Ford a run-scoring single. Mike Tauchman followed with a

two-run single.

With Edwin Encarnacion, Aaron Hicks, Gary Sanchez, and Luke Voit going on the injured list since July

24, Yankees manager Aaron Boone has stitched together his lineup with reserves and minor league call-ups.

The formula has worked as the first-place Yankees have won five straight.

Price (7-5) was finally taken out of the game after he walked Gleyber Torres and was given a sarcastic

standing ovation by Yankees fans as he walked slowly to the dugout.

“It’s been a tough [week] for us,” Price said. “We had a good series down in Tampa and a good series

against New York at home. Every since then it hasn’t been the same.”

The seven runs Price allowed over 2⅔ innings inflated his earned run average to 4.36. He is 0-3 with a

10.59 ERA in four starts since reigniting his feud with team broadcaster Dennis Eckersley over an innocuous quote in a Globe Magazine story.

Like Price, Yankees lefthander J.A. Happ came off the paternity list to start. He gave his team a solid start.

The lefthander had a three-hit shutout through four innings before giving up consecutive home runs to left

field by Christian Vazquez and Michael Chavis.

The Sox chipped away some more in the sixth inning when J.D. Martinez singled and Sam Travis walked

with two outs. After a wild pitch advanced both runners into scoring position, Andrew Benintendi snapped

an 0-for-9 skid by grounding a two-run single into center field.

Luis Cessa, who had not pitched in four days, replaced Happ and walked Vazquez on five pitches to put the

tying run at the plate. Chavis got ahead 2 and 0 then struck out swinging at low slider.

The Sox did not threaten again. Now they play 12 of their next 15 games at home. It could be their final

hope for a revival.

“We’re going to go home. That Green Monster is going to remind us where we are,” Cora said. “There’s no

hiding. We know we’re talented and we can do it.”

Weak week has disappointing Red Sox season at its nadir

Dan Shaughnessy

The beat goes on. The beatings go on. Eight days a week. All of them losses. The division is gone and the

wild-card quest is starting to look like Kilimanjaro.

The reeling Red Sox lost their eighth straight Sunday night at Yankee Stadium, a 7-4 defeat at the hands of

A.J. Happ and a Yankee lineup that looked like something Aaron Boone would bring to Fort Myers in

March.

It was Happ vs. Hapless. The Red Sox are 14½ games behind the Yankees (16 in the loss column!) and a

full 6½ out of wild-card contention.

The Game Ball for this one goes to the inimitable David Price, who told us that he “hold[s] all the cards”

after he should have been MVP of last year’s World Series. Marching in lockstep with the soft parade of

stinky Sox starters, Price was routed for seven runs on nine hits and two walks in 2⅔ innings.

“It’s been tough for myself and the rest of our starters,’’ Price said after the loss. “We have a very good

team, 1 through 25. It’s just that some of us haven’t had good seasons to this point.’’

Swell. But the fact is that the Yuck Meister is a puddle again. And whether you like it or not, it is

impossible to escape the conclusion that it all goes back to the Dennis Eckersley thing. Again.

Two and a half weeks ago, when we were still taking the Red Sox seriously, Price was sailing along with a

7-2 record and a 3.16 ERA. Then, on July 17, he went looking for trouble, reacting to a benign Eckersley

remark that was part of a lengthy Boston Globe Magazine profile on the Hall of Famer.

Price mocked Eckersley with a couple of tweets, promised it was “gonna be lit” when folks got to the

ballpark that night, then delivered on his pledge with a string of insults intended to embarrass Eckersley. It

was totally unnecessary and it backfired, the way it always does.

Alex Cora seemed miffed, asking, “Why now?’’ and Price immediately went into the tank, giving up six

runs in four innings of an 11-2 loss to the moribund Orioles.

After that, he submitted two more stink bombs against the Rays. Sunday in the Bronx, Price came off paternity leave to pitch the series sweep finale in the Bronx. It was a perfect storm of suck.

The reeling Red Sox appear to have gone on strike since Dave Dombrowski gave up on them at the trading

deadline, and it seemed unlikely that Price would be the man to stop the bleeding. Calling on Price to be the

stopper reminded me of the time the scoring-starved Bruins summoned Lyndon Byers when they were in

search of offense.

Price was not up to the task.

Aaron Judge hit a moonball homer to right in the first. No big deal, we figured.

The floodgates opened with two outs and one on in the third. Price surrendered six straight hits, all of them

loud. Seven consecutive baserunners. Six more runs.

Gio Urshela crushed a two-run homer. Brett Gardner doubled to right and scored on a double to left by

Cameron Maybin. The immortal Mike Ford singled home Maybin. Kyle Higashioka doubled to left, then

Mike Tauchman — yes, these are the first-place Yankees — singled to right. When Price walked Gleyber

Torres, Cora came out with the hook.

“I just couldn’t make a pitch to get us out of it,’’ said Price.

There you go. In four starts since his latest Eck dust-up, Price is 0-3 with a 10.59 ERA. He has given up 20

runs and 30 hits in 17 innings.

The Red Sox have lost all four games.

So we have eight straight losses for a team that never lost four straight last season. Good thing the

moribund Royals are coming to Fenway. The Red Sox have not lost more than eight games in a row since

the 2014 team quit after management botched the Jon Lester negotiation.

A week ago Sunday, the Sox were flying high.

They’d just beaten the Yankees three straight times by an aggregate 38-13, bashing 33 extra-base hits in just 24 innings. Noted hardball sages across the land nodded and agreed that the Sox had finally turned

their season around. They were going to be an October force. The slumbering giants were awakened and

nobody would want to face them in the playoffs.

That was when Chris Sale took the mound on Sunday Night Baseball — J-Lo brought A-Rod’s birthday

cake — and gave up six runs in 5⅓ innings of a 9-6 loss to the Bronx Bombers.

What was the lowlight of the woeful week? Take your pick:

When Dombrowski did nothing at the deadline, he told us that we would not believe how many teams

called him seeking bullpen help from Boston’s stable of ace relievers. And you thought Burger King was home of the Whopper.

After a sloppy first inning in his Wednesday loss to the Rays, Rick Porcello smashed not one, but two

dugout television monitors.

Cora told us he was going to have a team meeting Friday in New York. But when the Sox got to Yankee

Stadium, Cora — borrowing from the oratory playbooks of Bobby Valentine and Marianne Williamson —

said there would be no meeting. He was either kidding, or he changed his mind, or “all of the above.’’ It

was bizarre.

Saturday at Yankee Stadium, Sale imploded after not getting a couple of calls from plate umpire Mike

Estabrook. Sale was pulled after giving up eight runs in 3⅓ innings. Cora and Sale were both ejected. After the game, the manager and the pitcher went to great lengths to explain how one missed call triggered a 9-2

loss for the Red Sox.

Then came the players-only meeting. Then, two more losses.

“It was a horrible week,” said Cora. “We’re in a big hole. We know we’re talented and we can do it.”

It was indeed a horrible half Fortnite for the Red Sox. And unacceptable. There’s a good chance the team

with the top payroll in baseball is not going to make it to the postseason.

There will be blame.

Heads will roll.

Nathan Eovaldi is evolving in his new role as a reliever

Peter Abraham

Outside of the last two weeks, Nate Eovaldi has never worked as a reliever beyond a game here and there.

So it was something he had to get used to when the Red Sox activated him from the disabled list July 20

and assigned him to the bullpen.

Only in recent days has it felt comfortable for the 29-year-old righthander.

“It’s getting there,” Eovaldi said Sunday before the Red Sox were swept by the Yankees in a 7-4 loss. “I’m

feeling good. My pitches are better. I have a feel for my curveball and splitter now.

“The biggest thing coming out of the bullpen is having an understanding when you’ll come in so you can

prepare.”

His comfort shows in the results. Eovaldi struck out four of the eight batters he faced in his last two

appearances and didn’t allow a run. His fastball hit 99.4 miles per hour against the Yankees on Friday

night.

Eovaldi made four starts in April before undergoing arthroscopic surgery to remove a loose body in his

elbow. He then developed biceps tendinitis, lengthening his time on the injured list.

Eovaldi’s first three appearances were fastball-heavy and Eovaldi allowed five runs on nine hits over 2⅔

innings.

“His mix of pitches has been a lot better,” manager Alex Cora said. “The breaking ball, the split, and

obviously the fastball is a plus one. That’s the difference. I wasn’t worried about him. It was a matter of

seeing how he does in a close game and you see the results.”

Eovaldi said he’s striving for consistency while building up his endurance so he can throw on back-to-back

days or for two innings.

“My arm feels great. I feel I’m ready to do whatever I needed,” he said. “The elbow is not an issue.

Everything feels normal. I just need to watch my pitch count and be efficient.”

The long-term plan is for Eovaldi to return to the rotation next season.

Brewer demoted

The Red Sox optioned infielder Marco Hernandez and righthanders Colten Brewer and Josh Smith to Triple

A Pawtucket.

David Price, who started Sunday night, was reinstated from the paternity leave list. The Sox also recalled

righthander Ryan Weber from Pawtucket.

Weber was summoned in the fifth to relieve Darwinzon Hernandez and pitched four scoreless innings of

relief, retiring 12 of the 13 batters he faced, while throwing only 47 pitches.

A third move was needed to retain lefthander Brian Johnson, who came off the injured list Saturday and

was the 26th man for the doubleheader.

The Sox appear to finally be souring on Brewer, who has a 1.75 WHIP. Opposing hitters have a .384 on-base percentage against him.

“He needs to work on a few things,” Cora said. “The swing-and-miss potential is there but there’s some

deep counts and not controlling the strike zone. We feel he can do a better job.”

The Sox obtained Brewer from the Padres in November convinced he was an undervalued asset because of

the high spin rate on his curveball and cutter. But that hasn’t led to success on the mound.

Hernandez was 1 for 4 with a double and walk in Saturday’s doubleheader. He is hitting .333 with an .862

OPS in 29 games this season.

No change of heart

It’s not unusual for a manager to complain about an umpire’s strike zone one day and admit he was wrong

a day later after reviewing the game on video.

That was most definitely not the case for Cora’s opinion of how Mike Estabrook called Game 1 of

Saturday’s doubleheader.

“I still don’t agree with some of them,” Cora said. “It is what it is. We got some calls; they got some calls.

Whatever. I didn’t agree with it.”

Cora and Chris Sale were elected in the fourth inning after Estabrook missed what should have been a

called third strike on Gio Urshela.

Urshela singled to spark a seven-run inning in a game the Sox lost, 9-2.

(Lack of) rain delay

The start of the game was delayed for 69 minutes due to the threat of rain. Actual rain only fell for a minute

or two . . . Price is 3-8 with a 7.89 ERA in 12 starts against the Yankees since joining the Red Sox in 2016 .

. . The Yankees have won seven consecutive series at home against the Red Sox. The last series the Sox

won in the Bronx was Aug. 11-13, 2017, when they took two of three . . . Bobby Dalbec is 3 for 8 in two games for Triple A Pawtucket since his promotion from Double A Portland. Cora said the Sox wanted to

see how Dalbec fared against older pitchers with more of a game plan. “It’s another challenge in his

process,” the manager said. “It’ll be good for him to go to Triple A and see a different type of pitching.”

Dalbec, 24, has been primarily a third baseman in the minors but started 10 games at first this season. With

22-year-old Rafael Devers locked in at third base for the Sox, Dalbec figures to see more time at first base.

A rare honor

Portland lefthander Daniel McGrath was named the Eastern League Player of the Month for July. The last

Sea Dogs pitcher to win that award was Justin Masterson in July 2007. McGrath was 2-0 with a 0.24 earned

run average in six starts. The 25-year-old Australian did not allow an earned run in five of those starts.

McGrath, who was signed in 2012, is 3-0 with a 1.46 ERA in 22 games, 10 of them starts, this season . . . The Yankees placed outfielder Aaron Hicks on the injured list with a flexor strain in his right elbow. He

was injured making a throw in the second game on Saturday. Hicks will be shut down from throwing for 7-

10 days . . . Yankees shortstop Didi Gregorius, who missed the first three games of the series with a

strained finger on his left hand, was back in the lineup.

Alex Cora may have to accept reality this season isn’t in cards

Tara Sullivan

It was only the third inning Sunday night when Alex Cora emerged from the dugout to remove yet another

ineffective Red Sox starting pitcher from a game. It only felt much later.

The combination of an inexplicable nearly rain-less rain delay that had pushed first pitch back by more than

an hour and an interminable inning in which the Yankees had already batted around against David Price

took care of that, so by the time the manager finally pulled Price from the carnage, it felt more merciful

than cruel.

Could Cora have rescued Price earlier? Sure. Six straight two-out hits that were bookended by walks had

put the Sox in a seven-run hole, well on their way to a shocking four-game sweep in the Bronx, a 7-4 final

that is their eighth (and counting) loss in a row. Should Cora have rescued Price earlier? Maybe. Price’s

history against the nemesis Yankees all but guaranteed that any sign of trouble would snowball into another disaster.

But Cora did neither, leaving Price to the wolves until that second walk, when he gave way to Darwinzon

Hernandez, who quickly recorded the final out.

“We’re one pitch away from finishing that, and knowing where we were bullpen-wise, we were hoping for

him to finish that inning and go out again,” Cora said.

Go ahead and give Price a prime seat at the table of bad Boston pitching, joining Chris Sale, Eduardo

Rodriguez, and Brian Johnson, who were similarly ineffective here against the Yanks. Rick Porcello and

Andrew Cashner were only lucky to be the ones who missed them this time around.

But it’s time to save a seat for Cora, too. The manager just can’t seem to find the answer to kick his team

into gear.

I thought he’d found it last week at home, when three straight wins against the Yankees followed a series

win in Tampa Bay. But it didn’t stick.

After a Sunday night loss and a home sweep to those same Rays, after the buildup to the trading deadline

landed with a no-deal thud, Cora was going to hold a team meeting in New York and see where his team

was at. He didn’t, alternately saying his intentions were overblown by the media, or that he’d simply

changed his mind, or that he checks with his team on a daily basis anyway. Either way, nothing changed.

The Sox lost Friday. They lost the opener of a doubleheader Saturday. Then his players held a meeting

without him. Again, nothing changed. They lost the second half of the doubleheader Saturday night. They

barely showed up Sunday either, unable to beat a Yankee lineup whose bottom half was like a Quadruple-A

roster.

Through it all, Cora’s answers haven’t changed much either, consistently rooted in a belief this team has all

the right pieces, and just isn’t executing.

How could he say otherwise?

Remember back in January, when he was still riding high on the wonderful World Series win, when he

took to a microphone at the Boston baseball writer’s dinner and promised even more?

“Somebody might write this, I don’t care,’’ Cora said that night. “If you guys thought last year was special,

wait till this year.’’

We’re still waiting.

Still waiting for Cora to have the golden touch he had a year ago, when his team sprinted out of the gate

and never lost steam under his watchful hand. He was rightfully lauded on many fronts, foremost among

them his ability to communicate (in two languages) with players, his deft touch at letting his clubhouse

police itself, and his management of a lineup that was as relentless as any the sport had seen in years.

As a leader, that carried through in spring training, when Cora guided his team through the unexpected

death of Blake Swihart’s brother and even helped them handle another untimely passing of someone

outside their clubhouse but a big part of their landscape nonetheless, when longtime Globe baseball

columnist Nick Cafardo collapsed at Fenway South.

But the baseball side never did come together, and the seeds were planted in the spring.

Starting pitchers who were so adeptly managed through the playoffs, when Cora was brilliant in using off-

day starters in relief to cover shortcomings in his bullpen, were held back in spring, their workload barely

resembled anything they’d have to do this season. And the more those starters struggled, the more that same unreliable bullpen (this time without Joe Kelly and Craig Kimbrel) was overused and exposed.

And when general manager Dave Dombrowski did nothing to shore up the bullpen at last Tuesday’s trading

deadline, the tenuous grip on the season went into free fall.

Cora has to be the one to grab the reins back.

“I’m good,” he said. “People think it was easy last year, just like that, but it wasn’t. We had to coach every

day, put guys in position to be successful. Keep working, keep showing up the next day, stay positive.

That’s what I do here. That’s why they hired me here.

“From my end, I believe in these guys and I know they can do it. Just keep showing up every day and put them in position to be successful. And they will be successful.”

Still waiting.

* The Boston Herald

Red Sox fade to long-shot status in race for wild card

Tom Keegan

The combined dollars paid by the Rays and A’s don’t add up to the payroll of the Red Sox, but those numbers aren’t the most important facing the defending World Series champions this morning.

These carry more significance: The Red Sox have 48 games remaining and stand 6-½ games behind the

Rays and six behind the A’s for the second wild card, and 8-½ behind the Indians for the first wild card in

the wake of getting swept in four games by the Yankees by a combined score of 26-12.

Forget about catching the Indians and consider that three things need to happen to earn the right to play on

the road in a game played under one-and-done conditions. The hour is getting late, too late to believe from

the outside looking in that the Red Sox will suddenly start playing better and the Rays, who have taken

serious injury hits to their rotation, and the A’s will cave in historic fashion.

The Red Sox need to get hot immediately and even that probably won’t be enough. The Rays’ next 19

games all come against teams with losing records. By the time the Rays visit Fenway Park for four games

(Sept. 20-23) it could be too late for it to matter to the Sox.

The A’s face a much tougher August slate than the Rays. Just three of Oakland’s next 17 games come

against a team (White Sox) with a losing record. For the A’s either the Yankees or Astros are the opponent

in 14 of their next 34 games. That’s a tough five-week stretch for the A’s, but counting on others to

collapse won’t get it done for the Red Sox. They need to magically turn the clock back to 2018 to make a

race of it and what makes anyone believe that can happen?

Sunday night’s 7-4 loss to the Yankees was the 55th of the season for the Red Sox, one more than they had

in 162 games last season.

Sometimes in baseball it takes a new season for players to get out of ruts. That might be the case for left-

handers David Price and Chris Sale, co-anchors of a starting rotation that has fallen far short of lofty

expectations.

The Yankees have been particularly tough on the lefties. In a combined six starts vs. the Bombers, they

have gone 1-5 with a 9.62 ERA and have allowed nine home runs in 29 innings.

Even if Price and Sale, who have about nine starts apiece remaining, find their grooves it’s difficult to see the numbers adding up for the Red Sox. The sweep at Yankee Stadium was a near fatal blow.

Playoffstatus.com gives the Red Sox a 3 percent chance of earning one of the two American League wild

cards.

Adding a reliever at the trade deadline would not have done it for the Red Sox, unless you believe that it

demoralized the team and led to prolonging the funk in which the team is mired. The Red Sox take an

eight-game losing streak into tonight’s series-opener against the Royals at Fenway Park.

Both manager Alex Cora and Price convincingly shot down the notion that failing to pick up help at the

trade deadline has been a factor in the recent slump.

“No, I don’t think so,” Price said. “We have a very good team in this clubhouse. One through 25, we have a very good team. Some of us haven’t had a very good season up to this point, but there are still (48) games

to be played and there’s still time.”

Red Sox’ streak of wretched starting pitching continues

Tom Keegan

So much happened with the Red Sox over the weekend and none of it was good.

The Yankees swept the four-game series, wrapping it up with a 7-4 Sunday victory in a game that was

delayed more than an hour by a bad forecast that predicted rain. The clouds never burst. They just hovered over a Red Sox season slowly slipping down the drain, one bad performance at a time from a pitching

rotation expected to be one of the best in baseball.

The defending World Series champions have lost eight consecutive games.

If the Red Sox don’t make the playoffs, and it’s looking increasingly likely that they won’t, the Bronx, of

all places, will be remembered as the place the season unofficially died an ugly death.

And the starting rotation, of all things, will be remembered as the unit that kicked dirt on their chances of

repeating as World Series champions.

The Sox didn’t have a particularly strong weekend with the bats. That’s OK, they’re entitled to a rare cooling off period and still have scored more runs than any team in baseball.

Obviously, the problem with the Red Sox isn’t their offense.

The starting rotation has fallen far short of expectations all season and now has slipped into a particularly

unsightly funk.

The Sox turned to David Price to stop a seven-game losing streak and Price turned the game over to the

bullpen without making it out of the third inning. The Yankees hit him hard, searing nine hits, two of them

home runs, and scoring seven runs, all of them earned, sending them on the way to a 7-4 victory that put

them 14½ games ahead of the third-place Red Sox.

Price continued what he wanted to end, a long stretch of bad starts for the fast-fading ballclub. The rough

start came on the heels of a paternity leave, but when Price was offered that as a crutch, he declined to take

it.

During the eight-game losing streak, Red Sox starting pitchers have logged 37 innings, an average of 4⅔

innings. That’s no way to rest a bullpen, but it’s far from the worst statistic of the ugly streak. The ERA is

10.70, the starters allowed 61 hits and 13 of them have been home runs. That’s a rate of 3.16 home runs per

nine innings pitched, alarming even in a year in which it’s apparent that the ball is juiced and so many

hitters mysteriously have bulked up.

If such propositions were offered, a psychic could have made a bundle wagering that Price (4.36 ERA),

Chris Sale (4.68) and Rick Porcello (5.74) all would have career-worst years in the same season.

It seems such a strange coincidence, so is it more than a coincidence? Did slow-playing the veteran pitchers

during spring training dig a hole from which they never really could escape? Maybe not. Sale had a

dominant nine-start stretch and Price has had his good patches as well. Is there something faulty about the

pitch-calling patterns? Tough questions to answer, but well worth exploring for those commissioned with

fixing broken pitchers.

Eduardo Rodriguez had easily the best start during the eight-game streak and was the only pitcher to make

it as many as six innings when he pitched 6⅔ in Friday’s series-opening loss. Easily the best start, yet he took a two-run lead to the mound for his first pitch and cough, coughed up the lead and then some,

allowing four runs in the first.

Four of the eight starts were made by Sale and Price, two of the American League’s most successful

starting pitchers in recent years, just not this year.

In the four starts, Sale and Price combined to last 16 innings, allowed 32 hits and eight home runs, posting

a combined ERA of 14.06.

Strange.

As it gets deeper into the season it’s becoming tougher to believe the talent of the rotation will surface this

season. Sometimes, it takes a fresh start to turn trends. Ever the optimist, Cora doesn’t see it that way.

“Not really,” Cora said. “We trust these guys. We’re going to roll them out there, and we’re going to keep

working for them to make adjustments and get better. We were talking about it earlier today during the

game. We roll 15 days in a row with good pitching, we know we can do it. We did it for seven days and

you saw what happened.”

The Red Sox went 5-2 vs. the Rays and Yankees during those seven days, but it vanished as quickly as it

appeared.

It was a weird weekend in general for the Red Sox.

The first bit of news came when Alex Cora revealed Friday that he never really intended to have a

clubhouse meeting. A day later, between games of a doubleheader the Yankees swept, there was a meeting,

but Cora wasn’t invited. Players only. Cora and Sale both were ejected from the first game of the

doubleheader for unloading on the home-plate umpire in the middle of a 9-2 loss.

As bad as the 6-13 start to the season was for the Red Sox, this active eight-game losing streak has done

even more damage given that less than a third of a season remains to recover from it. Both streaks featured

particularly poor starting pitching. What was supposed to be the team’s greatest strength has been its most

glaring weakness. Again, strange.

Look out below: Red Sox swept by Yanks for 8th straight loss

Michael Silverman

Playoffs?

Until the Red Sox rotation re-discovers the abandoned art of pitching, the 2019 Red Sox are free to go leaf-

peeping in Vermont this October.

Capped off by another concerning start from the declining David Price Sunday night in a 7-4 loss, the Red Sox were swept in four games over this lost weekend in the Bronx that featured weak-sauce offense and

atrocious pitching from the starters to a Yankees lineup that will be pining for them for days.

The club was reeling before it got here, but the Big Apple inspired them to enter death-spiral mode. The

Red Sox have an eight-game losing streak that is (radio)active, and the 59-55 ballclub is closer to falling

back to a .500 record than it is to an AL wild card berth. After arriving here 3½ games back, they are now

6½ games out as the three teams ahead of them, the Indians, Rays and A’s, combined to go 7-0 over the

weekend.

The calendar still says August from Price’s perspective.

“Everybody just has to do their part, that’s all we need, we don’t need anybody to be extra special, just 1 through 25, just everybody pull your own weight and we’ll start winning baseball games again,” said Price.

The team’s loss total has now exceeded the 2018 total of 54.

“We had a very good season last year, that’s crazy to think about, I wasn’t aware of that,” said Price. “Last

year everything went really well for us, the ball bounced our way, it’s been a lot tougher to this point for us

this year.”

Price’s manager described this past week as “horrible.”

“It wasn’t a good week, not only the trip, but the whole week, so we’ve got a lot of work to do,” said manager Alex Cora. “We’re in a big hole, and obviously we’re very talented, but it didn’t go our way this

week. We’ll go this week, and we’ve got to play better.”

Cora’s optimism for improved execution will eventually meet the reality of the baseball calendar.

“We know where we’re at,” said Cora. “We’re going to go home and that Green Monster is going to

remind us where we are. There’s no hiding. We know we’re talented and we can do it. It’s just a matter of

start doing it now.”

Their losing streak is their longest since 2015.

Price could not make it out of the third inning, when, with two outs, he fell apart, surrendering six runs on six consecutive loud hits.

On the evening he allowed seven runs and nine hits, two of them home runs.

“Just couldn’t make a pitch to get out of it,” said Price. “I got two outs there, then the two out walk to

Judge and I just couldn’t make a pitch to get the third out of that inning.”

Price’s effort was not an outlier, neither for himself or the staff.

Of late, he has been producing bad start after bad start. Over his last five, he has posted an 0-3 record and

8.59 ERA. And since his ERA stood at a season-low 2.70 on June 8, Price’s performance has been on a steady downward roll, with a 6.55 ERA in those 10 games that has ballooned his current ERA to 4.36.

Over four starts here, the starting crew of Eduardo Rodriguez, the best of the bunch, Chris Sale, Brian

Johnson and Price combined to throw just 16 innings — four per pitcher — and allowed 31 hits and 22

runs, bad for a 12.38 ERA.

Sale and Price combined for 6⅓ innings, 18 hits and 15 earned runs.

On the season, the starters’ ERA stands at 5.07. When this series began, it stood at 4.87.

“It’s been tough – just myself, the rest of our pitchers, our starters, it’s been a tough stretch for us for sure,”

said Price. “We haven’t thrown the ball to our capabilities the last eight or nine games and for the most part

of the season and that’s been tough for us.”

The Red Sox offense did manage to put up four runs against fellow paternity-leave starter J.A. Happ.

Christian Vazquez and Michael Chavis homered back to back in the fifth inning, and Andrew Benintendi

singled in two runs in the sixth inning.

The third-inning throttling began with a two-run home run by Gio Urshela that gave the Yankees a 3-0 lead

that felt surmountable for about three deep breaths from Price. Back-to-back doubles, followed by a single,

another double and one more single preceded Price’s final effort, a walk to the leadoff hitter Gleyber

Torres.

Dysfunctional Red Sox turn to David Price for stability

Tom Keegan

To get a better understanding of how things have been going for the Red Sox lately, consider that David

Price left the team for a few days, all hell broke loose, and the club turned to him to stabilize the madness

Sunday night in the finale of a four-game series dominated by the Yankees.

Price has been at the center of his share of storms during his time with the Red Sox, but he had nothing to

do with any of the two days of drama that featured three losses for the Yankee Stadium visitors.

The series started with manager Alex Cora divulging that he would not be having a team meeting after all.

Not quite 24 hours later, the players were having a meeting, but Cora wasn’t invited. Players only. In

between the non-meeting and the meeting, Cora and former ace Chris Sale had been ejected by the home

plate umpire for words they sent his way, and the unfavorable reviews of him continued after the 9-2 loss in

the opener of a day/night doubleheader that concluded with the Yankees winning, 6-4.

The Red Sox went into the finale of the four-game series in danger of being swept and looking for Price,

who had gone on paternity leave, to stop a seven-game losing streak.

Complicating matters for the Red Sox, the two teams ahead of them in the race for the second wild card,

the Rays and A’s, keep winning, even though their combined payrolls are way less than the Red Sox. As of the delayed first pitch for ESPN’s Sunday night baseball game, the Red Sox stood six games behind the

Rays and 5-½ behind the A’s. The Indians were eight games ahead of the Red Sox.

It’s pointless to track it any longer, but just for the record, the third-place Red Sox stood 13½ games behind

the Yankees, who somehow keep losing bodies and winning games.

Edwin Encarnacion suffered a fractured wrist on a slider from Josh Smith in the first game of Saturday’s

doubleheader.

In the second game, Yankees center fielder Aaron Hicks injured his elbow on a throw to the infield. Both

players checked onto the injured list, a crowded place all year for the Yankees.

Bombers manager Aaron Boone said “we were all kind of worried that it could be,” an injury that required

Tommy John surgery, so the diagnosis (fexor strain) for Hicks came as a relief.

“He’ll be shut down for the next seven to 10 days from throwing,” Boone said of Hicks. “We’re hoping at

that point he’ll be in position to start ramping back up then. We’re optimistic that he will be back.”

A return for Encarnacion is more iffy, but serious injuries don’t seem to faze this Yankees squad.

“I don’t remember (seeing) this many significant people that have missed serious time,” Boone said. “For

us, a credit again for those guys across the board. So many people have stepped up and impacted us

winning games. They’ve really done a great job and it’s why I feel anything that’s come up, whether it’s

been an injury, whether it’s been a bump in the road during the season, anything adverse that seems to

happen to this group, they don’t flinch and they know what the expectation is and they’ve gone out and

delivered.”

If the Red Sox had shown that sort of resilience this season, general manager Dave Dombrowski might

have felt better about caving to the steep demands of clubs dangling relief pitchers.

Dombrowski has made a series of questionable moves since receiving justified praise for his work as

architect of the dominant 2018 Red Sox, but so far his non-move at the trading deadline suggests he was right in not believing this was a team worth gambling on. The gutted farm system needs to rebuild and a

deeper demolition of it would have gone for naught. Move or no move, this team was going nowhere unless

the quarter of a billion dollars worth of ballplayers started playing better, particularly the pitchers.

Red Sox re-jigger roster for finale with Yankees

Michael Silverman

In order to bring length to the bullpen and variability to the lineup, the Red Sox made a trio of moves

before Sunday night’s series finale against the Yankees.

Reliever Colten Brewer and infielder Marco Hernandez were sent back to Pawtucket (Triple A), while

David Price was activated from paternity leave in order to start the game.

The Red Sox were carrying an extra player because of Saturday’s doubleheader, so that’s mainly why

Hernandez, who has done everything right at the plate and in the field, had to go. The biggest reason he

went to the minors had to do with something he could not control.

“Where we’re at right now, it’s a little bit tough – we don’t want to be too left-handed,” Red Sox manager

Alex Cora said before the game. “But he’s playing great. And the cool thing is when he goes down there,

he keeps the same energy. You saw it (Saturday). He’s competing, he’s doing well, and he’s healthy. It’s

good to see him healthy.”

Brewer was replaced in the bullpen by Ryan Weber. Brewer pitched in each of the games on Saturday, so

he would have been unavailable anyway. Weber gave the Red Sox length in case of a short night for Price.

Brewer has allowed just one run over his last eight outings and 6⅓ innings, allowing six hits with four

strikeouts and two walks. Not too shabby but the Red Sox want more.

“He needs to work on a few things,” said Cora. “The swing and miss potential is there but there’s some

deep counts and not controlling the strike zone, we feel he can do a better job. At the same time, where

we’re at with the roster, it was just the logical move.”

Another right-handed reliever previously sent to Pawtucket, Ryan Brasier, will, one would think, return to the big-league roster before too much longer.

“Fastball command has been better, offspeed pitches OK, he’s been like, back and forth,” said Cora.

“Overall with the fastball, it’s a lot better than when he was here towards the end.”

Cora had some time to re-examine the strike zone judgment of Saturday’s Game 1 home plate ump Mike

Estabrook, who gave Cora the heave-ho for arguing that vision.

“I still don’t agree with some of them,” said Cora.

The Red Sox went 1-8 at Yankee Stadium this season, their worst record here since the awful 2001 team

also went 1-8.

On the plus side of the 7-4 loss, reliever Ryan Weber pitched four scoreless innings. … Christian Vazquez

and Michael Chavis hit back to back homers in the fifth inning, the seventh time the club has gone long

back to back this season. Andrew Benintendi hit a two-run single in the sixth.

Closer questions

When the Red Sox announced in early July that Nathan Eovaldi would return as a reliever, the initial call

was that he would return as closer while there was some vagueness about whether or not Eovaldi would

return to the rotation if there was enough time.

As of now, the plan is to leave Eovaldi in bullpen rest of year now that Andrew Cashner is the fifth starter.

And there is no rush and certainly not a mandate to make him the closer – Brandon Workman’s that guy.

“We’re comfortable with Work, the way he’s throwing in the back end,” said Cora. “You look at the

numbers, against lefties, against righties, what he’s done, it’s amazing. We’re comfortable with him there,

and we’re comfortable with Nate in the eighth and the seventh, depending on the situation.”

And the plan does remain the same for 2020: Eovaldi will return as a starter.

Cora appreciates that Eovaldi has seen some improvement, though modest, in his five appearances and 4⅔

innings as a reliever, in which going into Sunday had opposing hitters hitting him at a .417 clip. Eovaldi

had nine strikeouts and one walk.

“His mix of pitches has been a lot better, the breaking ball, the split, and obviously the fastball is a plus

one, that’s the difference,” said Cora. “I wasn’t worried about him, it was just a matter of let’s see how it

goes in a close game, and you see the results.”

The unexpected

Rick Porcello’s season (5.74 ERA) has gone nothing like he or anybody has expected. Monday night at

Fenway, he will throw the first pitch in the series against the Royals, one start after he allowed six runs in 5⅔ innings against the Rays.

“Hopefully he builds on the last three innings of his last one – he threw the ball well, command was better,”

said Cora.

“The secondary pitches were a lot better than early in the game so that’s the goal, for him to keep rolling

after those three innings.”

Cora said both Porcello and the team have not ceased efforts to fix whatever’s ailing him.

“It’s been a grind, it hasn’t been easy,” said Cora. “There’s two ways of taking it, huh? You just stop working and just accept that OK, we’re not good this year or keep working and that’s what he’s doing. He’s

a workaholic and that’s what you like about Rick. It’s not only mechanics or physically or watching video.

He’s always getting after it and trying to find it.” …

Cora is pleased that top prospect Bobby Dalbec has progressed to Pawtucket.

“This is a guy that dominates the strike zone, we know the power potential,” said Cora. “So I think it’s

another challenge in his process. It will be good for him to go to Triple-A and see different type of pitching.

I’m a big believer that in Double-A, stuff plays a little bit more and Triple-A, pitchability comes into play

so he’s going to see something different and that’s going to help in his development.”

* The Providence Journal

Buried in the Bronx

Bill Koch

“It seems like it’s flip-flopped from last year — where they’re at right now and where we’re at right now.”

Alex Cora made that statement on Saturday afternoon. It had been 363 days since his Red Sox finished off

a four-game sweep of the Yankees at Fenway Park, all but securing a third straight American League East title. Boston and its manager could do no wrong despite New York’s obvious talent and 100-win pace,

steamrolling its way to a World Series title.

Houston might have something to say about how far the Yankees advance this October, but the Red Sox

increasingly look like a club that will play no meaningful part in that first full month of fall or even before.

Their postseason hopes are fading by the hour.

This day-night doubleheader at Yankee Stadium brought with it two more disappointments. New York

blasted its way to a 9-2 win in the afternoon and scraped to a 6-4 victory in the nightcap, extending

Boston’s losing streak to seven games. Boston’s losing streak is its longest since 2015. Boston is 59-54,

with as many losses as its World Series champions last year (108-54).

The Red Sox are 5½ games behind Tampa Bay with 49 to play, the second A.L. wildcard spot starting to

become a distant hope like the division race was about six weeks ago. The Yankees are now 15 games clear

of Boston in the loss column and still have Sunday night to heap more misery on the visitors.

The largest crowd of the season in the Bronx — a sellout of 48,101 fans — watched the Red Sox wither in

the late innings of the nightcap. Mike Tauchman’s two-run single through the left side snapped a 4-4 tie in

the bottom of the seventh and saddled Matt Barnes with the loss. The two earned runs he allowed were his

first since June 30 in London, with New York also doing the honors on that occasion.

Both teams went bullpenning through the majority of the second game. Brian Johnson lasted just three

innings while making a spot start for Boston, touched for a solo home run to left by Gleyber Torres and a two-run double inside the third-base bag by Cameron Maybin. Torres added a second solo home run

leading off the fifth, rudely greeting Josh Taylor.

Boston’s offense was limited to the early stages in the late game. Rafael Devers crushed a two-run homer to

right-center in the third and Mookie Betts dropped a two-run single into left in the fourth. Devers was back

at the plate with the bases loaded and two outs in the eighth, but he went down swinging against Zack

Britton to extinguish the final Red Sox threat.

The bottom of the fourth inning decided the opener. The Yankees piled up seven runs to snap a 1-1 tie, as

both Cora and Chris Sale were ejected for arguing balls and strikes by home plate umpire Mike Estabrook.

Breyvic Valera’s RBI single to right, Brett Gardner’s two-run single through the middle and DJ LeMahieu’s three-run homer on a liner to the boxes in right effectively finished the Red Sox. Sale was done

one batter later after an Aaron Judge double, with bench coach Ron Roenicke coming out to the mound.

“It’s hard enough playing this game as it is,” Sale said. “You give these guys extra outs, it’s going to hurt. I

felt like (Estabrook) kind of changed the landscape of the game.”

Solo home runs by Andrew Benintendi and Jackie Bradley Jr. were all Boston had to show for its efforts

against Domingo German, as the right-hander posted his second straight victory against the Red Sox. German scattered five hits and struck out seven against no walks while improving to 14-2 on the season.

Cora was long gone by the time German threw his 97th and final pitch, sent to the showers during a mound

visit after the Valera base hit.

“There was only one purpose,” Cora said. “I wasn’t talking about mechanics or anything. Just let me know

when (Estabrook is) coming and I’m going to let him know how I feel.”

New York doubleheader sweep sends Boston toward rock bottom

Bill Koch

The Red Sox have matched their loss total from a season ago.

It took just 113 games to do so, the latest defeat – their 54th – coming late Saturday night at Yankee

Stadium. Boston is wilting while its rivals for American League playoff berths are surging. The likes of

New York, Houston and Minnesota are in another class entirely while Cleveland, Tampa Bay and Oakland

look increasingly likely to battle for the two wild card spots amongst themselves.

Setbacks of 9-2 and 6-4 against the resurgent Yankees sandwiched a players only meeting and extended

comments from manager Alex Cora and left-hander Chris Sale that should earn both men a call from Major

League Baseball offices. New York’s players, the sellout crowds here this weekend, afternoon plate umpire

Mike Estabrook – yes, at times, even the Red Sox themselves – all feel like opponents these days. The

steamroller that brought home the club’s fourth World Series championship this century in 2018 never stalled, wheezed and creaked uphill like Boston’s current group.

“It was a good game,” Cora said of the nightcap. “We just didn’t win. That’s it. We can’t be saying we’re

playing good games. We have to start winning.”

There was both acknowledgement and a hint of resignation in Cora’s voice. The Rays now own a 5½-game

lead for the final A.L. wild card spot, and Boston has just 49 games left to run them down. The Yankees

have treated their rash of injuries like a minor nuisance while emerging as the class of the division.

“I want to be held accountable,” said Brian Johnson, Saturday night’s spot starter who was parachuted into

baseball’s version of a hornet’s nest. “Giving the team a chance to win is nice, but I would have liked to

have done better.”

New York has been virtually unbeatable at home against A.L. East foes, capturing 22 of its last 26 games.

There was an air of inevitability to the two-run single shot through the left side by Mike Tauchman in the

night game, snapping a 4-4 tie in the bottom of the seventh inning. Rafael Devers failed to produce the

tying base hit in the top of the eighth, stranding the bases loaded with a strikeout against Zack Britton.

“It’s a totally different ballgame if it’s tied still,” said Matt Barnes, who gave up Tauchman’s deciding hit

and took the loss. “That one’s on me. I’ve got to be better.”

Barnes hadn’t allowed an earned run since late June, turning in 10 scoreless appearances in July and

surrendering just three hits. Devers was a strong A.L. Player of the Month candidate in July after leading the big leagues with 34 RBI. The reality of this rotting Red Sox campaign is it almost seemed appropriate

for players who have been so good recently to turn bad at the exact worst moment.

The day half of the doubleheader saw Cora and Sale seething at Estabrook after a series of shaky ball-strike

calls went against Boston. Xander Bogaerts, J.D. Martinez and Mookie Betts all had certain at-bats derailed

while Gio Urshela and Aaron Judge were both given key lifelines. Cora and Sale were both ejected and

watched the end of the seven-run bottom of the fourth play out from the visiting clubhouse.

“It’s hard enough playing this game as it is,” Sale said. “You give these guys extra outs, it’s going to hurt. I

felt like (Estabrook) kind of changed the landscape of the game.”

Sale’s frustrations are understandable, but subpar umpiring wasn’t entirely to blame for the eight earned

runs he allowed. His 4.68 ERA is the worst of his career by more than a full run, and the nine hits he

surrendered matched a season high. The Yankees have buried Sale for 22 earned runs in his four starts

against them this season, and he’s completed just 20 innings.

“These guys, like I’ve been saying all along, they understand that this team was built around the rotation,”

Cora said. “It hasn’t been effective. There’s no hiding it.”

The Red Sox were never going to win another 108 games. It would have been ridiculous to expect such a

thing – it happens once a century, after all. But with so many returning stars, the highest payroll in the sport

and what seemed to be credible talk of a repeat headlining spring training, Boston certainly had to be better than this.

Yankees 7, Red Sox 4: Boston losing streak reaches eight games as playoff hopes continue to fade

Bill Koch

It’s finally over.

Read that however you wish, Red Sox fans. It certainly applies to this disastrous four-game weekend series

at Yankee Stadium. It also could apply to any realistic hopes Boston has of playing in October.

The defending World Series champions are on an eight-game losing streak, their longest since July 2015.

Xander Bogaerts was a 22-year-old regular at shortstop who played in 156 games, the most on that club.

They finished six games under .500 and closed as the last Red Sox team not to win the American League

East.

“Obviously we know the team that we have now,” Bogaerts said late Sunday night. “We know the talent

that is here compared to that team. I know it’s something that a lot of people didn’t expect, to go on a bad

run like this.”

Joe Kelly made 25 starts that season and Henry Owens made 11. David Ortiz hit 37 home runs as a 39-

year-old designated hitter – no other Boston player cracked 20. Koji Uehara recorded 25 saves, a reminder

that success has never solely been dictated by having a lockdown closer or not.

So Bogaerts is correct in his assertion that these defending World Series champions should be far better

than some of their Boston predecessors, but New York continued to shovel dirt on the Red Sox thanks to a

7-4 victory. David Price allowed six runs in the bottom of the third inning and was rocked once again at

this venue – he now sports an ugly 9.16 earned-run average in eight starts here with Boston. That’s the

highest by any opposing pitcher with at least six starts at any visiting ballpark since 2016.

“Got to find something different,” Price said. “It’s a good hitting team. They put the ball in play. They hit it

hard. They make it tough on me.”

The same could be said of Price’s mates in the Red Sox starting rotation, which has posted an inflated 5.07 ERA through 114 games. He and Chris Sale, two left-handers worth more than $350 million in total

contract cash, pitched 6 1/3 innings this weekend and allowed 15 earned runs. Josh Smith and Ryan Weber,

two emergency long relief options up from Triple-A Pawtucket, worked eight innings and surrendered just

one earned run.

“It wasn’t good, and we know it,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “This team is built around the starting

rotation, and we need to do better.”

Gio Urshela. Cameron Maybin. Mike Tauchman. Those were three of Boston’s principal tormentors at the

plate this weekend, and anyone who had those three guys in their fantasy teams should move to the head of the class. The Yankees have strolled through their rash of injuries like Rasputin an look poised to end the

three-year reign enjoyed by the Red Sox atop the division.

“We know where we’re at,” Cora said. “We’re going to go home and (the standings on) that Green Monster

is going to remind us where we are. There’s no hiding.”

There was some fraying around the edges for Boston this weekend, as four straight sellout crowds and New

York’s players on the field turned up the heat. Cora and Sale were both ejected Saturday after two separate

verbal scuffles with home plate umpire Mike Estabrook. Mookie Betts (2-for-15), Rafael Devers (2-for-16)

and Bogaerts (0-for-15) were all effectively neutralized at the plate, and Betts recorded the lone hit among

the trio on Sunday night with a single to right-center.

“It’s frustration, I guess,” Bogaerts said. “Just didn’t stay with my plan and had a horrible series. I’m

looking forward to going back home.”

The Red Sox are just four games over .500 returning to Fenway Park, their lowest point since a loss to

Toronto on July 3. Boston eventually reached 12 games above that mark thanks to a 9-5 cruise past the

Yankees last Saturday. The Red Sox haven’t won a game since.

“It wasn’t a good week – not only the trip, but the whole week,” Cora said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.

We’re in a big hole.”

Red Sox manager Alex Cora stands by Saturday comments following ejection

Bill Koch

Red Sox manager Alex Cora declined to back off criticisms levied at umpire Mike Estabrook on Saturday

afternoon.

Cora and Boston starter Chris Sale were ejected by Estabrook in the bottom of the fourth inning after a

series of questionable ball-strike calls. Of particular interest was an 0-and-2 fastball to Gio Urshela that

appeared to be inside the top of the zone. Urshela eventually singled and the Yankees staged a seven-run

rally in a 9-2 victory.

“I still don’t agree with some of them,” Cora said. “I can’t argue balls and strikes. It is what it is.”

Cora made a mound visit planning to confront Estabrook and was quickly sent to the showers. Bench coach

Ron Roenicke took Sale out of the game after allowing a double to Aaron Judge, and Estabrook banished

Sale to the clubhouse after a few choice words walking toward the dugout.

“There’s got to be something that can be done about this,” Sale said Saturday. “We’re held accountable as

players and as coaches.”

Red Sox prospect Bobby Dalbec continuing his development with Pawtucket

Bill Koch

Saturday’s opposing pitcher was what the Red Sox had in mind when they promoted Bobby Dalbec from

Double-A Portland to Triple-A Pawtucket.

Rochester right-hander Drew Hutchinson is a veteran of 98 big league appearances, including 79 starts.

Hutchinson has worked for the Blue Jays, Pirates, Phillies and Rangers since making his debut with

Toronto as a 21-year-old in 2012.

Hutchinson has moved beyond prospect status and is a veteran surviving in the game. Most of Dalbec’s opponents with the Sea Dogs were still on the climb, younger pitchers still looking to refine their ability.

“I’m a big believer that in Double-A stuff plays a little more and that in Triple-A pitchability comes into

play,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “He’s going to see something different, and that’s going to help

him.”

Dalbec singled twice in four at-bats while making his first appearance for the PawSox on Saturday. His

familiar nemesis – strikeouts – popped up on Sunday, as Dalbec fanned three times against a lone single.

The 24-year-old has made consecutive starts at third base and could spend some time at first base as well.

“I think it’s part of the development process,” Cora said. “This is a guy who dominates the strike zone. We

know the power potential. I think it’s another challenge in his process.”

Dalbec is a consensus top-3 prospect in the Boston system. His strikeout rate dipped from 37.1% last

season with Portland to 25.1% this season. Dalbec is also walking nearly four times as often, improving

from 4.8% to 15.5%.

David Price (paternity leave) returns as Red Sox make five roster moves

Bill Koch

David Price planned to make his Sunday start against the Yankees all along.

The Red Sox left-hander’s postgame comments following Tuesday’s 6-5 loss against Tampa Bay included

an allusion to adjustments required before taking the ball against New York here in the Bronx.

Professional life didn’t stop for Price despite being placed on the paternity leave list prior to Friday’s series

opener at Yankee Stadium. He remained on his normal five-day throwing program at Fenway Park despite

Boston starting this quick trip without him. Price and his wife, Tiffany, welcomed a baby girl prior to the

start of this four-game set with the Yankees.

“We had some people helping him out,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “I know it’s different – the

routine is a little bit different – but he tried to stay in line with his throwing program.”

Cora took paternity leave of his own just over two years ago while serving as the bench coach with the Astros. He and his girlfriend, Angelica Feliciano, are parents of twin boys Xander and Isander. Houston’s

travel party left for a weekend series at Baltimore without Cora, and he rejoined the club for its following

series at Philadelphia.

“I changed my routine when Angelica had the twins,” Cora said. “It’s part of life.”

Price covered just 4 1/3 innings against the Rays and allowed a season-high nine hits. The Red Sox had

dropped each of his last four starts entering Sunday, with Price pitching to a 6.52 earned-run average in that

stretch.

“It starts with fastball command,” Cora said. “Everything starts with fastball command with all of them – especially with David.”

Price’s return was one of five roster moves made by Boston prior to Sunday’s first pitch. Right-hander

Ryan Weber was summoned from Triple-A Pawtucket while right-handers Colten Brewer and Josh Smith

and infielder Marco Hernandez were all optioned to the PawSox. Smith threw the final four innings and

allowed one earned run in a 9-2 Red Sox loss on Saturday, the opener of the day-night doubleheader.

Red Sox manager Alex Cora turns to notes from his daughter for inspiration

Bill Koch

Any sort of morale boost was welcome for the Red Sox entering Sunday night.

Alex Cora found his in a suitcase at his hotel, something he had stashed away two years ago when he

returned to full-time baseball work as the bench coach for the Astros.

Cora’s teenage daughter, Camila, gave him a set of 50 hand-written cards to store in his travel bag. Their

messages vary from the serious to the sweet, and Boston’s manager stumbled upon them late Saturday

following a day-night doubleheader sweep at the hands of the Yankees.

“I looked at one and it was like, ‘After a tough loss...’” Cora said. “And I read it, and it was about quitting. I was like, ‘Oh, this is interesting.’”

Cora, his staff and Red Sox players have all insisted they’re not shutting down for the final 49 games of the

season. This seven-game losing streak is the longest for the franchise since dropping eight straight in July

2015. That team finished 78-84 and was the last Boston club to miss out on the playoffs.

“We’ve just got to go out and do it,” said Matt Barnes, the losing pitcher by a 6-4 count in Saturday’s

nightcap. “It is what it is, right? We are where we are. It’s not where we want to be, but there’s some

baseball to be played left.

“We’ve seen this team rattle off 15 out of 20 or 17 out of 20 before. We’re definitely capable of doing that. We’ve got to go out and do it.”

It’s been a familiar refrain all season from the Red Sox – eventually, at some point, their talent is going to

take over. Superstar names like Mookie Betts, J.D. Martinez, Chris Sale and David Price couldn’t possibly

be in the same clubhouse for an extended period on a mediocre team. That’s been the consistent line of

thinking.

And yet, as Sunday morning dawned in the Bronx, Boston stood 5½ games behind Tampa Bay for the final

American League wild card spot. The Red Sox followed up a 5-2 week against the Rays and New York by

dropping six straight against the same foes. Tampa Bay’s three-game sweep at Fenway Park preceded three

straight Yankees triumphs here this weekend.

“They keep working,” Cora said. “There’s a lot of communication about what we need to do on the field.

There are a few things we have to do as a team and as a group. It seems like they’re in a good place.”

Boston’s players held a closed-door meeting after their 9-2 loss to the Yankees in Saturday’s afternoon

contest, attempting to clear up some lingering frustrations. Cora held court with the media in his office just

off the locker room while the Red Sox attempted to find a solution for their current malaise. They have less

than two full months to summon the form that made them World Series winners just one season ago.

“We’ve got to find a way,” said Chris Sale, who was tagged for eight earned runs and a season-high nine

hits while absorbing his latest defeat. “We’ve got a couple months left and we’ve got to have each other’s

backs and grind through it and get to where we need to be.”

The 2018 campaign was fairy-tale stuff for Boston, a franchise-record 108 wins on the board before

dispatching New York, Houston and the Dodgers in October. The Red Sox going on a run after Cora found

some family inspiration would be a heart-warming narrative. Camila was with him on stage at Dodger

Stadium last year after Boston stormed to its latest championship, beaming with pride during a live

postgame hit with her dad on national television.

″‘After a big win’ or ‘After a big loss’ or ‘If you miss me’ – all this stuff,” Cora said. “It was the first time I

was going to be away for a while. It was like, ‘He’s going back to baseball.’”

Cora has been victorious in the last two postseasons, winning a championship with the Astros in 2017.

Barring a quick turnaround by this sputtering version of the Red Sox, baseball might be sending Camila’s

father back to her a month earlier than usual this year.

* MassLive.com

Red Sox’s 8-game losing streak has defending champions running out of time to make postseason

Chris Cotillo

The Red Sox aren’t anywhere close to being mathematically eliminated from the postseason picture but

their eight-game losing streak sure makes it feel that way.

After winning five of their first six games to begin a 14-game stretch of games against the Rays and

Yankees, the Sox dropped the final eight. The final dagger came Sunday night, with a 7-4 loss to the

Yankees that sealed a four-game sweep at Yankee Stadium.

The damage? The Sox went from holding an American League wild-card spot to being 6 1/2 games out in

only seven days’ time.

“It wasn’t a good week,” manager Alex Cora said. “Not only the trip, the whole week. We’ve got a lot of

work to do. We’re in a big hole.”

With 48 games to go, the Red Sox find themselves well behind Cleveland and Tampa Bay in the wild-card

race. Put another way, they’re as close to the 48-61 White Sox as they are to the 66-45 Indians in the

standings.

After taking two of three against the Rays and the first three games of a four-game home series against the

Yankees, the Red Sox were riding high. Talk of Boston potentially selling at the trade deadline subsided

and the team looked to be playing its best baseball of an inconsistent season.

Chris Sale flopping against the Yankees in primetime a week ago meant the Sox couldn’t finish a sweep

and the team has stumbled since. The rotation has been a major liability, with David Price’s seven runs in 2 2/3 innings Sunday night putting the rotation’s ERA at 10.61 over the last eight games (44 runs in 37 1/3

innings).

“For myself and the rest of our starters, it’s been a tough stretch for us for sure,” Price said. “We haven’t

thrown the ball to our capabilities the last eight or nine games and for the most part this season. That has

been tough for us.”

Boston’s top three hitters-- Mookie Betts, Rafael Devers and Xander Bogaerts-- combined to go 4-for-46

with one extra-base hit and one RBI combined against the Yankees. Even the team’s two most consistent

contributors (Devers and Bogaerts) found themselves slumping.

“It’s a bad time to be playing some bad baseball,” Bogaerts said. “It starts with me and I’m looking forward

to turning it around. The season is going by quick.”

Bogaerts is right about that, as the Sox have less than 30% of their season left to play and a massive hill to

climb. That journey starts Monday at Fenway Park, when the lowly Royals come into town to begin a

seven-game homestand.

“We have a very good team in this clubhouse, 1 through 25,” Price said. “We have a very good team. Some of us haven’t had very good seasons up until this point. There’s still 50 some-odd games to be played.

There’s still time.”

114 games into the season, the Red Sox have surpassed their loss total from last season. A team that won

108 games a year ago is now on pace to win 84 games-- an unthinkable total that would surely cause the

Sox to miss the postseason.

An up-and-down season hit rock bottom Sunday night in the Bronx.

“We didn’t put good games together,” Cora said. “We had some close ones at home but we didn’t finish

them. We didn’t pitch. Offensively, it has been okay lately. We didn’t hit with men in scoring position and

we didn’t put pressure on the opposition. Overall, a horrible week.”

Boston Red Sox division, wild card standings update: Sox 6.5 games out of playoff spot after getting

swept in New York

Chris Cotillo

The Red Sox were swept in a four-game series at Yankee Stadium, dropping the series finale, 7-4. The Sox

have now lost eight in a row.

Here’s how that impacts the standings:

14.5 games behind the Yankees in the A.L. East

8.5 games behind the Indians for the first wild card spot

6.5 games behind the Rays for the second wild card spot

SCORES:

Yankees 7, Red Sox 4 (Yankees pick up game on Red Sox)

Rays 7, Marlins 2 (Rays pick up game on Red Sox)

Indians 6, Angels 2 (Indians pick up game on Red Sox)

Athletics 4, Cardinals 2 (Athletics pick up game on Red Sox)

STANDINGS:

A.L. East:

Yankees: 71-39

Rays: 64-48 (8 games back)

Red Sox: 59-54 (13.5 games back)

A.L. Wild Card:

Indians: 66-45

Rays: 65-48 (2 games behind Cleveland)

____________

Athletics: 64-48 (0.5 games behind Tampa Bay; 2.5 games behind Cleveland)

Red Sox: 59-55 (6.5 games behind Tampa Bay; 8.5 games behind Cleveland)

Rangers: 57-54 (7 games behind Tampa Bay; 9 games behind Cleveland)

Angels: 56-57 (9 games behind Tampa Bay; 11 games behind Cleveland)

David Price, Boston Red Sox lose 8th in a row, get swept by Yankees in 7-4 loss Sunday night

Chris Cotillo

After spending two days away from the team for the birth of his second child, Red Sox lefty David Price

had Yankees fans asking him who his daddy is Sunday night.

Price imploded in the third inning of his outing, allowing six runs on six consecutive hits as New York

jumped out to a 7-0 lead. The Yankees would go on to win, 7-4, sweeping the Red Sox in a four-game

series and handing their rivals their eighth consecutive loss.

Price, like fellow lefty Chris Sale a day earlier, didn’t last long against the Yankees, exiting after just 2 2/3

innings. Sale, who fell to 5-11 with a brutal performance in Game 1 of Saturday’s day-night doubleheader,

combined with Price to allow 15 runs on 18 hits in just 6 1/3 innings against New York on the weekend.

Aaron Judge got the Yankees on the board with his 11th homer of the year in the first inning before things

really fell apart two innings later. A Gio Urshela homer put New York up 3-0 and Cameron Maybin, Mike Ford and Mike Tauchman all had RBI hits.

Boston crawled back, getting back-to-back solo homers from Christian Vazquez and Michael Chavis in the

fifth and two more runs on an Andrew Benintendi single in the sixth. Boston had chances against starter

J.A. Happ but was unable to dig out of the massive hole Price dug.

The short start continued a brutal stretch for Price, who has allowed 20 earned runs in his last 17 innings

while Boston has lost his last five starts. Red Sox starters combined to allow 22 runs in 13 1/3 innings over

the four games in the Bronx, good for a 14.85 ERA.

The Sox continued their longest losing streak with their eighth straight loss, being swept for the second

straight series against a top division rival. Boston is now 59-55 and sits 14 1/2 games behind the Yankees in the A.L. East and 6 1/2 games out of a wild-card spot.

Bogaerts’ skid continues

Shortstop Xander Bogaerts had a weekend to forget, going 0-for-15 in the four games against New York.

Bogaerts was 0-for-4 with two strikeouts in the finale and watched his average drop from .317 to .306 in

three days.

Royals up next

The Sox now have a chance to take out their frustrations on the Royals, who come to Fenway for a three-game series Monday with a 40-73 record. Boston will then face the Angels for four games before going to

Cleveland.

Pitching probables:

Monday, 7:10 p.m. - LHP Mike Montgomery (1-4, 6.34 ERA) vs. RHP Rick Porcello (9-8, 5.74 ERA)

Tuesday, 7:10 p.m. - RHP Jakob Junis (6-10, 5.03 ERA) vs. RHP Andrew Cashner (10-6, 4.44 ERA)

Wednesday, 7:10 p.m. - RHP Glenn Sparkman (3-7, 5.58 ERA) vs. LHP Eduardo Rodriguez (13-5, 4.19 ERA)

Boston Red Sox notebook: David Price threw at Fenway Park during paternity leave, Ryan Brasier

showing improvement at Pawtucket

Chris Cotillo

A collection of Red Sox-related notes from manager Alex Cora before Sunday’s game against the Yankees.

Price’s unusual routine not an issue

Sunday starter David Price had an unusual week, spending the last two days back in Boston after the birth of his second child. Cora downplayed the notion Price could struggle Sunday night after not going through

his normal routine between starts.

Cora said Price went to Fenway Park to throw while the team was in New York.

“We had some people there helping him out,” Cora said. “The routine is a little bit different but he tried to

stay in line with his throwing program.”

Cora, who left his post as Astros bench coach for the birth of twins two years ago, is happy Price was able

to be with his wife, Tiffany, for the birth of their child. He joked that a reporter would find out himself

about paternity leave someday.

“You’ll have kids,” Cora said. “You’ll go and you’ll stop asking questions of the manager.”

Eovaldi to serve as primary setup man

Right-hander Nathan Eovaldi will pitch in the seventh or eighth inning moving forward, serving as the

primary setup man for de facto closer Brandon Workman.

“We’re comfortable with him there,” Cora said. “I’m comfortable with Nate in the eighth or the seventh,

depending on the situation.”

After getting hit hard in his first three relief appearances, Eovaldi has settled down with back-to-back clean outings in the last week.

Brewer sent down to ‘work on a few things,’ Brasier progressing in minors

The Sox optioned right-hander Colten Brewer to Pawtucket on Sunday as part of a series of roster moves in

which they activated Price, called up righty Ryan Weber and optioned righty Josh Smith and Marco

Hernandez.

Brewer posted an 0.73 ERA in 12 June appearances but struggled since July 1 (4.97 ERA). He was a roster

casualty in favor of Weber, who can give the Sox length in the bullpen after Saturday’s day-night

doubleheader.

“(Brewer) needs to work on a few things,” Cora said. “The swing-and-miss potential is there. But there are

some deep counts, not controlling the strike zone and we feel like he can do a better job.”

The Sox chose Weber over Ryan Brasier, who has been working at Triple-A since being optioned on July

16. Brasier has allowed one run on five hits in six innings for the PawSox and has made progress.

“Fastball command has been better,” Cora said. “Off-speed pitches, okay. It’s been back-and-forth. Overall,

the fastball is a lot better than when he was here toward the end.”

Brasier posted a 4.46 ERA in 40 1/3 innings with the Red Sox before being demoted.

Cora takes inspiration from daughter’s gift

Answering a question about starter Rick Porcello before Sunday’s game, Cora was asked how the right-

hander was handling his struggles this season. His answer spoke to the fork in the road the Red Sox find

themselves at after losing seven straight games.

“There’s two ways of taking it, huh?” Cora said. “You could stop working and accept we’re not good this

year, he’s not good. Or keep working. And that’s what he’s doing.”

Cora then relayed a story about how his daughter, Camila, hand-wrote 50 cards for him before he joined the

Astros’ coaching staff in 2017. The cards included messages on how to handle certain situations, including

big wins and losing streaks.

Cora happened to notice one of those cards in his suitcase this weekend.

Daughter - gave him 50 cards in 2017

“For some reason, my suitcase on this trip was from that team (the Astros),” Cora said. “I looked at one and

it was for after a tough loss. I read it, it was about quitting. I was like, ‘Oh, this is interesting.’”

Cora has vowed not to quit on his reeling team. He was asked whether seeing the card was a sign.

“Hopefully,” he said.

Red Sox roster moves: Price activated, Brewer sent down before series finale in New York

Chris Cotillo

The Red Sox made a series of roster moves before their series finale against the Yankees, activating lefty

David Price from the paternity list to start Sunday night.

Boston also recalled right-hander Ryan Weber and optioned pitchers Colten Brewer and Josh Smith and infielder Marco Hernandez to Triple-A Pawtucket.

Price was placed on paternity leave Friday and was away from the team for the last two days. He’ll pitch

opposite Yankees lefty J.A. Happ, who, coincidentally, will also come off the paternity list to start in

primetime.

Weber will give the Sox some length in the bullpen after they used five different relievers in Game 2 of

Saturday’s day-night doubleheader. Brewer and Smith both pitched Saturday and Hernandez was a

temporary roster replacement when Price left the team.

The Sox were allowed to have 26 players for their doubleheader, activating Brian Johnson from the injured list to start the nightcap. The roster again stands at 25 with one game on tap for Sunday.

* The Lawrence Eagle Tribune

Five Red Sox Takes: David Price rocked as season slips away

Chris Mason

Like a one-sided prizefight that had gone on too long, it was hard not cringe at the final round of Boston’s Bronx beatdown.

After dropping their first three to the Yankees — including both ends of a doubleheader — the Red Sox

took one final shot to the face on Sunday Night Baseball, falling 7-4. It very well may have been the

knockout blow to an underwhelming season.

Here are five takes from Boston’s eighth straight loss:

1. Price gets shelled

Fresh off paternity leave, David Price was rocked.

After giving up a first-inning homer to Aaron Judge, he imploded in the third. The lefty allowed six straight two-out hits, and there was nothing cheap about them.

New York tagged Price for seven earned runs in 2 2/3 innings, and the Yankee Stadium crowd taunted him

with “Who’s your daddy” jeers.

It was the 10th time this season Price has given the Red Sox five innings or fewer, and they’d never dig out

of the early 7-0 hole he put them in.

2. Pitching trends continue

Price’s outing put an exclamation point on an abysmal week for the Red Sox starters. In a rotation littered

with highly-paid veterans, 26-year-old Eduardo Rodriguez is the only pitcher giving his team a chance on a nightly basis.

For Price personally, it was the fourth poor start in a row. He’s allowed 20 earned runs in 17 innings. It was

also his fourth start since he decided to hold his Dennis Eckersley press conference. Connect those dots if

you wish.

3. J.D. still brings it

Though a handful of at-bats have looked like players had an eye towards the first tee, none came from J.D.

Martinez.

The designated hitter brought it all weekend in the Bronx, hitting safely in all four games, walking five

times, and finishing the series with a 2-for-4 night. Martinez has an opt-out clause looming at season’s end, so there’s plenty of additional incentive to keep playing hard, but he’s the type of prideful player that would

either way.

4. Weber shines in relief

Somewhat jarringly, Boston’s best pitcher in the Bronx was Ryan Weber.

Recalled Sunday morning, Weber threw four innings of scoreless relief to keep the series finale relatively

close.

It was a longer outing than either Price or Chris Sale turned in this weekend.

5. Wild Card slipping away

The Yankees absolutely buried the Red Sox in the AL East race this weekend, putting them 14.5 game

back, and the Wild Card is slipping away, too.

With 48 games to play, Boston fell 6.5 back of the Rays, who have an awfully friendly stretch of schedule

ahead of them.

If these Red Sox have any fight left in them, they’d better show it soon.

At 59-55, they’ve now lost more games than the 2018 team did all season (108-54).

Is Dave Dombrowski's dead trade deadline what did Red Sox in?

Chris Mason

Have the Red Sox begun free falling because they were destined to lose, or was Dave Dombrowski’s trade

deadline a catalyst?

It’s a fascinating chicken-or-egg debate.

Despite a wealth of talent and baseball’s biggest payroll, the Red Sox have underachieved all season. They sit third in the AL East accordingly.

But their first Rays-Yankees week seemed to flash real potential. The Sox went 5-2, bludgeoned New

York’s starters at Fenway Park, and won both series.

The rotation pitched well, Boston boasted the best offense in the majors, and they seemed a bullpen piece

or two away from contending once more come October.

Could they have? Or was that week simply fools gold?

Dombrowski’s refusal to invest at the deadline spoke volumes about his own stance.

There’s no denying the abysmal play that followed Wednesday’s trade deadline non-action. That hasn’t

been a mirage.

The Red Sox came into Sunday night’s game in the Bronx 0-5 since adding nobody, falling six games back

in the Wild Card race and 13.5 behind the Yanks in the AL East at first pitch. They’d lost seven straight for

the first time since 2015 and looked every bit a team going through the motions.

Sox batters struck out 52 times in five games, and players not named J.D. Martinez had only drawn six

walks. It wasn’t a run of nasty pitchers. It was a team giving too many at-bats away.

Diplomatically, Alex Cora chalked the regression up to bad baseball.

“I think it’s just Rays and Yankees and us not swinging the bat well and pitching well,” the manager said.

But it was only a week ago they’d flexed their muscles against those same rivals.

Mookie Betts offered something a bit more revealing in the Bronx.

In an interview that he knew would air on FOX’s nationally-televised Saturday broadcast, Betts was asked

whether the team was bothered by the fact that nobody was added at the deadline.

The seemingly always go-with-the-flow player paused for four seconds. Then he didn’t respond with the answer of least resistance.

“Ummm, I mean,” Betts hesitated. “You could say yes and you could say no. I think that’s all stuff, in the

clubhouse that we can’t control.”

It certainly sends a message to the clubhouse, and the Sox wouldn’t be the first team to nosedive after not

adding on July 31.

The 2017 Houston Astros were a first-place team that stood pat and responded with an 11-17 August.

Because of the non-waiver deadline they were eventually able to deal for Justin Verlander, correct course, and win a World Series (Cora may have mentioned that), but they were a talented team playing dead

baseball because their confidence had been shot.

There will be no such shot of adrenaline for these Red Sox, whose core was talented enough to win a World

Series, too. The July 31 deadline is now a firm one, and what you see is what you get.

The small-market Rays, Boston’s chief competition for a Wild Card spot, decided to buy at the deadline.

They’re 4-0 since.

Baseball may be a game increasingly governed by statisticians, but clubhouse messaging still matters. It

helped propel the 2018 team to a championship.

Maybe the Sox didn’t deserve an upgrade. Maybe they did.

Following Dombrowski’s vote of no confidence, we’ll never really know.

* RedSox.com

'Horrible week': Price extends Sox rotation's skid

Ian Browne

For much of the season, everyone fretted that the Red Sox didn’t have enough in the bullpen. This allowed the team’s biggest issue to be underplayed for a considerable amount of time.

But there is no hiding it anymore.

The starting rotation for the defending World Series champions is a serious impediment in their postseason

hopes.

David Price was the latest starter to get roughed up, taking an 7-4 loss to the Yankees on Sunday Night

Baseball. Boston’s longest losing streak since 2015 swelled to eight games. During the skid, the starting

rotation is 0-6 with a 10.70 ERA.

“It's been tough,” said Price. “Just for myself, the rest of our pitchers, our starters, it's been a tough stretch

for us for sure. We haven't thrown the ball to our capabilities the last eight or nine games and for the most

part of the season, and that's been tough for us."

For the season, the rotation is 37-39 with a 5.07 ERA. The numbers are striking, considering the rotation

was viewed as the team’s biggest strength coming into the season.

Even more striking is that the 59-55 Sox are now 14 1/2 games back in the American League East and 6 1/2

behind the Rays for the second AL Wild Card spot.

“It wasn’t a good week,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “Not only the trip, but the whole week, so

we’ve got a lot of work to do. We’re in a big hole, and obviously we’re very talented, but it didn’t go our way this week.”

The team’s last victory was eight days ago over the Yankees, a win that put Boston eight back in the

division and a half-game ahead of the Rays in the Wild Card standings. The degree to which things have

changed in the span of a week has been astounding.

“We didn’t put games together. We had some close ones at home, but we didn’t finish them,” said Cora. “We didn’t pitch. Offensively, it’s been OK lately. We didn’t hit with runners in scoring position, and we

didn’t put pressure on the opposition. So, overall, a horrible week.”

If there is to be a revival, it will have to start with the starters.

To date, only Eduardo Rodriguez (13-5, 4.19 ERA) has been basically what you’d expect.

Price was his team’s best starter through July 14, but he has a 10.59 ERA in his last four starts. In eight

starts at Yankee Stadium since joining the Red Sox, Price is 1-7 with a 9.61 ERA.

Ace Chris Sale has been almost unrecognizable compared to the rest of his career, going 5-11 with a 4.68

ERA. Rick Porcello, a Cy Young Award winner in 2016 and a stabilizing force in last year’s rotation, has a 5.74 ERA in 22 starts. Andrew Cashner was having a career year until the mid-July trade from Baltimore to

Boston, after which he is 1-3 with a 6.94 ERA.

“This team was built around the starting rotation, and we need to do better,” said Cora.

At this point, Cora doesn’t really have any options as far as changing personnel in the rotation. Nathan

Eovaldi was moved to the bullpen when he returned from the injured list, and he’s not stretched out to start.

Brian Johnson, who came back from a prolonged absence to start Game 2 of the doubleheader on Saturday,

is more of a spot starter.

And, July 31 was the final Trade Deadline this season, so there’s nothing that president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski can do. There are no prospects at Triple-A who would be poised to join the

rotation at this point.

“We trust these guys. We’re going to roll them out there and we’re going to keep working for them to make

adjustments and get better,” said Cora. “We were talking about it earlier today during the game. It’s like,

we roll 15 days in a row of good pitching, we know we can do it. We did it for seven days [a week ago] and

you saw what happened. There’s no doubt in my mind these guys can turn it around.”

There’s also little doubt that they can’t wait any longer.

“We know where we're at,” said Cora. “We’re going to go home and that Green Monster is going to remind

us where we are. There’s no hiding. We know we’re talented and we can do it. It’s just a matter of start doing it now.”

With their 55th loss on Sunday, the Red Sox surpassed their total from last season. That serves as a

reminder of both how ridiculously good the team was a year ago, and how dramatic the slippage has been

so far in 2019.

The one thing the Red Sox have going for them is they are just about fully healthy. They also have nearly

every player back from the 2018 juggernaut, which only makes this season harder to figure out.

“We have a very good team in this clubhouse -- 1 through 25, we have a very good team,” said Price. “Just

some of us haven't had very good seasons up to this point. There's still [48] games to be played and there's still time."

Red Sox 'comfortable' using Workman as closer

Ian Browne

The assumption when the Red Sox moved Nathan Eovaldi to the bullpen was that the flamethrower was

poised to become the team’s closer.

The truth is that Brandon Workman has earned his keep in that role, and manager Alex Cora will most often pitch Eovaldi in the seventh or eighth inning when the game is on the line.

“We’re comfortable with Work, the way he’s throwing in the back end,” Cora said. “You look at the

numbers, against lefties, against righties, what he’s done, it’s amazing. We’re comfortable with him there.”

In 50 appearances entering Sunday night’s game, Workman had a 2.03 ERA and a .113 opponents’ batting

average while converting five of nine save opportunities.

For the first half of the season, Cora had been mixing and matching in the ninth inning. Of late, he has

consistently gone to Workman.

Eovaldi has made five relief appearances since returning from the injured list, and the last two have been his best.

Cora said that the plan is still for Eovaldi to return to the starting rotation next year in Spring Training. He

is signed for three more years.

Brewer down; Weber up

The Red Sox made a series of roster moves prior to Sunday night’s game. David Price was reinstated from

the paternity list to make his start, while righty Ryan Weber was recalled from Triple-A Pawtucket.

Infielder Marco Hernandez was optioned to Pawtucket, along with righties Colten Brewer and Josh A.

Smith.

Smith was essentially an extra pitcher to get the Red Sox through Saturday’s doubleheader. Why the

Weber-for-Brewer swap, aside from needing a fresh arm?

“He needs to work on a few things,” Cora said of Brewer. “The swing-and-miss potential is there, but

there’s some deep counts and not controlling the strike zone; we feel he can do a better job. At the same

time, where we’re at with the roster, it was just the logical move.”

Did the Red Sox give any thought to bringing Ryan Brasier back from Pawtucket? Brasier was one of the

team’s best relievers in 2018.

“We need length,” Cora said.

Brasier hasn't been scored on in six of his seven outings for Pawtucket since he was demoted on July 16.

“Fastball command has been better, offspeed pitches [have been] OK. He’s been like, back and forth,” Cora

said. “Overall with the fastball, it’s a lot better than when he was here towards the end.”

* WEEI.com

Where do we go from here with these Red Sox?

Rob Bradford

When Dave Dombrowski woke up July 31 his team had lost one more game than the Rays. When the sun

came up Monday (and yes Red Sox fans it did come up) the difference was seven.

Let's soak that in.

Like the Red Sox, Tampa Bay wasn't going to make a sprint toward the top of the division. Like the Red

Sox, its path to a World Series run was going to have to be put through a one-game Wild Card play-in.

Unlike the Red Sox (or more specifically Dombrowski) the Rays were OK with that. Six wins in a row later the Rays feel pretty good about their lot in life, enjoying the presence of newcomers Jesus Aguilar, Eric

Sogard and Nick Anderson while sitting firmly in the hunt for a postseason berth.

The Red Sox? There hasn't been this kind of August punch-in-the-gut vibe around here in some time.

Remember that five-game sweep by the Yankees back in mid-August 2006, turning a 1 1/2-game Red Sox

deficit into an all-hope-is-lost vibe the rest of the way? This was a reminder.

Maybe Dombrowski knew something we didn't, that the starting pitching wasn't quite right and wouldn't be

leaving the Red Sox in the kind of position that key relief-pitching additions would never fix. But if that

was the case nobody told the players or those who have attempted to figure this whole thing out.

You want proof? I present to you Mookie Betts' interview with Ken Rosenthal prior to Saturday's doubleheader sweep at Yankee Stadium:

Rosenthal: "Last Wednesday passed, trade deadline, you guys did not get a reliever. What was the reaction

in the clubhouse? Did that bother you guys?"

Betts: "Um, I mean ... You could say yes, you could say know. That's all stuff in the clubhouse we can't

control."

Translation: "Yes."

Believe me, even if that entire group was furious no move was made that is just part of the equation. Sure, between the comment from Dombrowski about taking different approaches depending on how the Red Sox

might make the postseason, along with the lack of any July 31 additions, morale wasn't boosted. And there

is most likely a feeling of "We're trying to do our job, so why didn't you do yours." But the fact of the

matter is nobody -- from those in the GM luxury box to the clubhouse to the coaches room -- has performed

when it counted the most.

And this was a really bad time to go into an organization-wide slump.

So, now what?

The answer isn't sexy: just plod forward and hope for the best.

Unless there are injuries we don't know about the likes of Rick Porcello, Chris Sale and David Price are

simply going to continue their existence as every-fifth-day participants. Potential free agents such as

Porcello, Brock Holt, Mitch Moreland and J.D. Martinez aren't going anywhere. The new rules won't allow

it. There really aren't a whole lot of members of the Triple-A Pawtucket Red Sox are pushing their way on

to the major league scene.

Sure, at some point the likes of Bobby Dalbec and maybe Tanner Houck will be interesting to see at

Fenway at some point this season, but if you're looking for an infusion of energy to jolt everyone away

from Patriots preseason games that will be hard to find.

Thanks to the elimination of the waiver trade deadline, along with the perceived death knell administered by the Yankees, this is shaping up to be some of the most innocuous baseball ever played by a team whose

payroll and pedigree was supposed to be the ultimate protection against apathy.

Maybe the Red Sox use the next three games as a springboard to change the conversation. After all, the

next few weeks don't exactly represent anything close to the 14-game gauntlet they went just limped their

way through. The Royals, Angels, Indians, Orioles, Phillies, Padres, Rockies, and Angels. That's your

August. If the starting pitchers can actually magically evolve into the players this blueprint was based on,

then perhaps things can get interesting again.

But to this point, these Red Sox have officially lost the benefit of the doubt, along with the right to make us look at the schedules for Tampa Bay, Oakland or Cleveland.

They wanted us to be one of those people who stared at the computer-generated picture long enough to see

the sailboat -- or in this case, a team with a plan and a pulse. But the eyes have gotten blurry. The dots

aren't rearranging themselves. It simply is what it is, which is far from art.

Red Sox look like they've quit, and this sad title defense could get a lot worse before it's mercifully

over

Alex Reimer

The Red Sox’ woeful weekend in New York effectively ended their chance to offer any real championship defense, and even more embarrassingly, convince us to care about them. The passion for this grossly

underachieving club should now match the intensity of a David Price meatball, served over the middle of

the plate for members of the Yankees’ bench to swat all over the ballpark.

The Yankees obliterated the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium this weekend, blasting Price for seven runs

Sunday night in the series capper. The death knell came in the third inning, when the most expensive

pitcher in baseball history allowed six straight hits to the Bombers’ backups, including Cameron Maybin,

Mike Ford, Kyle Higashioka and Mike Tauchman.

Price’s worst pitch of the evening was an 83 mile per hour changeup that hung over the middle of the plate

to Gio Urshela, who belted it deep to left-center field.

Up until three weeks ago, Price was the stalwart of the Sox’ staff. Then he decided to rip into Dennis

Eckersley following an innocuous remark in a lengthy Boston Globe Magazine profile about their two-

year-old airplane dustup, in which Price verbally assaulted the Hall of Famer for a glib remark –– “yuck!” –

– he made about an ugly Eduardo Rodriguez rehab start.

Since the resuscitation of this ridiculous one-way feud, Price is 0-3 with a 10.59 ERA. But it’s too simple

to chalk up Price’s atrocious outing Sunday to any sort of intangible Eck curse. He boasts a 9.61 ERA at

Yankee Stadium since signing with the Red Sox in 2016.

There is the temptation to blame Dave Dombrowski’s inexcusable inaction at the trade deadline for the Red

Sox’ eight-game losing streak. Last Wednesday, Dombrowski proclaimed he would’ve been tempted to do more if his team was closer to first place, even though his refusal to replace Craig Kimbrel and Joe Kelly in

the bullpen was one of the biggest reasons for the Red Sox’ shortcomings. It must have been a deflating

message to hear.

But instead of trying to prove Dombrowski wrong, the Red Sox have shown he was right to not invest in

them. Their two supposed aces, who are on the books for $241 million, allowed 15 runs to the Yankees

over the weekend. Boston is 17-27 when Chris Sale and Price take the hill this year.

Sale’s performance Saturday was downright unprofessional, and a sign this season is unraveling before our

very eyes. After getting squeezed on an obvious strike three call to Urshela, the slumping left-hander

allowed six of the next seven Yankees to reach base, before getting yanked from the game and ejected on his way out.

After the game, Sale and skipper Alex Cora, who was also tossed from the contest, bemoaned home plate

umpire Mike Easterbrook’s inconsistent strike zone. “Nothing is going to happen to him, I’m sure. He’ll be

out there (in Game 2) at third base, probably be at home plate again,” Sale whined to reporters. “I don’t

want to get too caught up in the politics of this, but there’s got to be something. ‘AC’ doesn’t do his job for

long enough, he’s gone. If I don’t do my job for long enough, I’m gone. … Got to find something. Nothing

really holding it down.”

While Sale is correct about the troubling lack of accountability for incompetent umpires across the league, the same thing applies for a seemingly cooked pitcher in his 30s who just inked a nine-figure contract

extension. The Red Sox are due to pay Sale $145 million through 2025, whether he can right himself or

not.

The failure to acquire Shane Greene or Daniel Hudson does not explain this season-ending eight-game

losing streak, which started last Sunday night, when the Yankees battered Sale at Fenway Park. The $240

million Sox have been outscored 58-32 during this putrid stretch. Sergio Romo is not worth 26 runs.

In an interview Saturday with Ken Rosenthal, Mookie Betts equivocated when asked whether

management’s conservative deadline approach bothered the players on this team. His silence was

deafening. But the best offense in baseball also went just 3-for-19 with runners in scoring position against

New York. Dombrowski is not to blame for every lazy Betts fly out.

So here the Red Sox are. They return to Fenway to play the lowly Royals and mediocre Angels, whom

they’re now closer to than the wild card-leading Indians and Rays. Red Sox starting pitchers make more

money –– $88 million –– than Tampa Bay’s entire club.

Maybe the Red Sox will bash their way to some victories at Fenway, where they’ve surprisingly struggled

all summer long. Perhaps the wild card gap will close back to three or four games. But this team just played

the Rays and Yankees 14 straight times, and blew their opportunity to make any real noise. Boston is now

16 games behind the Yankees in the division in the loss column, suffering its longest losing streak since the

moribund 2014 campaign.

This is the nadir of a season full of lows. The Red Sox showed us this weekend how bad this thing could

actually get.

David Price turns in horrific performance against Yankees

Rob Bradford

This was the last thing the Red Sox needed.

David Price did nothing to get the Sox back on the right track, turning in a demoralizing performance

during his team's series finale against the Yankees. The lefty starter lasted just 2 2/3 innings, giving up

seven runs on nine hits including home runs by Aaron Judge and Gio Urshela.

Price was ultimately lifted in favor of Darwinzon Hernandez, with the Red Sox carrying a 7-0 deficit at the

time.

Prior to the Yankee Stadium start Price had totaled a 6.52 ERA in his four outings since the All-Star break,

with hitters managing a .301 batting average and .984 OPS. The combined numbers for the perceived top

two pitchers in the Red Sox' rotation Chris Sale and Price combined to give up 15 runs over 6 1/3 innings.

Price hadn't been with the team over the previous few days due to the birth of his second child.

* NBC Sports Boston

Dave Dombrowski made the right call -- no amount of help could save the 2019 Red Sox

John Tomase

One way to view the trade deadline is to pinpoint it as the moment when Dave Dombrowski lost his

clubhouse.

Another is to say he made the right call.

Of the many lessons to take away from the last week, the primary one might be this: the defending World

Series champions did not deserve the help. They've spent most of the season on the outside of the playoff

race, mired right in the middle of the American League.

Dombrowski deciding not to throw away future resources in the service of a lost cause will ultimately go

down as the correct long-term move, even if it costs him the clubhouse and maybe even eventually his job.

But considering the lack of mental toughness the Red Sox have exhibited over seven straight losses, it's

hard to blame Dombrowski for making a cold, dispassionate evaluation and deciding that nope, a couple of

relievers won't make a difference.

The low point came on Saturday, when the Red Sox let their petty frustrations boil over in a doubleheader

sweep against the Yankees. Game 1 featured ace Chris Sale and manager Alex Cora being ejected after

screaming about Mike Estabrook's inconsistent strike zone, as if a couple of missed calls were the

difference between Sale going seven effective innings and allowing the nine hits and eight runs that ended

up torpedoing his outing.

For a manager and ace who preach accountability, it was a terrible look, made worse by their respective

postgame comments. It's OK to be frustrated, but it's borderline disgraceful to put this on anyone other than

the guy staring back in the mirror.

"We didn't agree with the strike zone, and I let him know," Cora told reporters.

"There's got to be something that can be done about this," Sale added.

Ugh.

But this just heightens a general feeling of discombobulation as the ship sinks. There's the Cora team

meeting that wasn't, followed by the players-only team meeting that was, followed by yet another loss in

Saturday's nightcap. There's Mookie Betts arguing strike calls, which he almost never does, and Xander

Bogaerts throwing his bat repeatedly after missing pitches. There's starters who can't go four innings and

hitters who transform from 19-run machines one week to meek three-hit lambs the next.

"We're searching," Cora said. "It's not like we're just OK, we're hoping for the best. On a daily basis we're looking for everything."

They now trail the Yankees by 13.5 games and the Rays by 5.5 games. They're four games behind Oakland

for the second wild card. They haven't been this far out of first place since the final day of the 2015 season,

when they finished 15 games out in last place. GM Ben Cherington didn't even survive August of that

season, replaced by Dombrowski.

And this brings us back to Dombrowski's trade deadline approach. He admitted that if the team were closer

to first place, he would've acted more aggressively. Now it's clear why. The Red Sox were already in the

process of laying down when July 31 came and went without making a move.

Now that they're finishing the job, they're revealing their true character, at least for 2019. And the way

they're going now, no closer, middle man, or combination of secondary pieces was going to be enough to

save them.

* BostonSportsJournal.com

For the Red Sox, being swept in New York this weekend may be another one of ‘those’ series

Sean McAdam

Over the course of the long Red Sox-Yankee history, a single series between the rivals has occasionally

served as the defining moment of a particular season for both franchises.

In 1978, that series was the legendary Boston Massacre, when the Yankees, having already stormed back

from being 14 games back in the summer, nearly finished the Sox off with a four-game sweep of the Sox at

Fenway in early September. The Sox eventually had their own comeback later that month, but we all know

how that ended.

In 2006, against the backdrop of a full-on Manny Ramirez tantrum, the Yankees took a five-game series

from the Sox — a four-game set grew because of a makeup game from earlier in the season — and effectively finished them off for the year. The Sox limped to a third-place finish, 11 games behind New

York.

Last year, the Red Sox used a Yankee visit to Fenway in early August to salt away their division

championship. Leading by 5.5 games when the four-game set began, the Sox won all four to move 9.5

games ahead and the East was effectively theirs. The winning margin was eight at the end.

Which brings us to this weekend, this season.

The Sox trailed the Yankees by 10 and a half games as the series got underway, and no one had any

delusions about the Sox still being the in the race for the division title. For the Red Sox, that dream pretty

much died last Sunday at Fenway when they failed to finish off a sweep and fell to nine games out.

Still, though they were reeling after being swept by Tampa Bay, the thought was winning three-of-four –

or at worst, getting a split on the road — would stabilize things for the Red Sox and get them back on track

in the wild card race.

Instead, the Red Sox were thoroughly outplayed and outclassed by the Yankees, swept away as though the

first three games in Boston last weekend, when the Sox pounded the visitors by scoring 38 runs, never

happened. Of the four games over the weekend at Yankee Stadium, only two — the opener, a 4-2 loss and

the second game of the doubleheader, tied at 4-4 in the seventh inning, could be considered competitive.

The Yankees had their way with the Sox, especially when it came to their starting pitchers. Only Eduardo Rodriguez pitched past the fourth inning and he still managed to give up four runs.

Boston’s top three hitters in the lineup that seemed poised to explode just over a week ago, were nearly

completely blanked. Together, Mookie Betts, Rafael Devers and Xander Bogaerts were 4-for-46. Of the

four hits, three were singles. The totals for the trio: one extra-base hit, one run scored, one RBI.

The Yankees are so far ahead in the standings — 14.5 games — the Red Sox need binoculars to spot them.

But here’s the really troubling result from the week from Boston’s perspective: Thanks to their four losses

at home and their four in New York, they’re now nearly as far back in the loss column for the second wild

spot — seven games — as they were behind the Yankees (eight games) the last time they won a game.

“It’s a bad time to be playing bad baseball,” acknowledged Bogaerts. “Obviously, these are tough losses.

We’ve got to move on as quickly as possible.”

Meanwhile, manager Alex Cora is running out ways to address the losing streak. His team is in free fall and

Cora is seemingly powerless to stop it, or, for that matter, to offer anything he hasn’t said repeatedly for

much of the 2019 season.

”It wasn’t a good week,” he understated. “Not just the trip (to New York), but the whole week. We’ve got a lot of work to do. We’re in a big hole.”

That they are. The starters aren’t giving them a chance, the bullpen can’t be depended on, and now, the

lineup, the one aspect of the team that has been strong for the past two months, has fallen off. There’s

literally nothing going right for the team currently.

Seven games back with 48 left to play is hardly insurmountable, especially considering that some of their

wild card competitors are flawed, too, and are bound to cool at some time.

But this weekend, it looked like the fight went out of the Red Sox. They scored four runs after falling

behind 7-0, but that served to make the game look respectable when the outcome was never really in doubt.

It’s tempting to say that a return to Fenway will cure what ails them — 12 of the next 15 are at home —

until you remember that they’re exactly .500 in Boston this season.

A far more likely scenario is that this series with the Yankees will be looked back on as the moment when

the season got away from them for good. Just like 2006 and 1978.

BSJ Game Report: Yankees 7, Red Sox 4 – Price rocked as Sox swept…again.

Sean McAdam

Price flops again: When David Price beat the Yankees the last time the Sox were last in New York for Sunday Night Baseball, it looked to be one more milestone win for him. Just as last October helped Price

erase his poor postseason history, the win in early June seemed to signal an end to his struggles in the

Bronx as a member of the Red Sox. Think again. Price gave up a solo homer in the first, then had the

Yankees bat around on him in the third and couldn’t get out of the inning, charged with seven runs in just

2.2 innings. His changeup and cutter both consistently ran over the middle of the plate in the third, inviting

hearty swings from the Yankees, who belted the ball all over the ballpark, with four extra-base hits in the

span of five batters. The lousy outing continued a poor run for Price, who has allowed 24 runs in his last 22

innings and is winless in his last five starts.

First three in lineup contained for series: Last weekend, when the Sox scored 44 runs in four games against

the Yankees at Fenway, they got a ton of production from Mookie Betts, Rafael Devers and Xander

Bogaerts. Betts had a three-homer game, Devers continued his huge run production and Bogaerts was his steady, reliable self. Not this weekend, however. Betts was a combined 2-for-15 at the plate over the four

games – both hits were singles — and failed to score a single run over the four games. Devers was only

marginally better, going 2-for-16 with a solo homer. And Bogaerts had the worst time of them all, going 0-

for-15 with a walk and a run scored. Is it any wonder the Sox weren’t much of a threat when the first three

hitters in their lineup combine to go 4-for-46?

Weber more than does his job: What does it say about the Red Sox weekend in New York that Ryan Weber

was easily — easily! — their most effective pitcher. Starter after starter failed them, and the bullpen

coughed up the nightcap Saturday, but Weber was very good. Taking over after Price was knocked out in

the third and Darwinzon Hernandez gave them four outs, Weber pitched the final four innings and retired

12 of the 13 Yankee hitters he faced. The only hit off him those four frames was a one-out double to right by Cameron Maybin in the seventh. Weber doesn’t throw hard, of course, but as he did against Toronto

back in May in a spot start, he used his mix of sinker and slider to keep the Yankees off balance, disrupting

their timing and getting a lot of weak swings.

TURNING POINT: Trailing the Yankees 7-0 after three innings, the Red Sox had their work cut out for

them. Consecutive solo homers by Christian Vazquez and Michael Chavis in the fourth got them on the

board and in the fifth, a two-run single by Andrew Benintendi got them to within three and chased starter

J.A. Happ. When Vazquez worked a walk off reliever Luis Cessa, that brought the potential tying run to the

plate in the person of Chavis. But Chavis swung at a breaking pitch in the dirt for strike three and the Sox had only one baserunner over the final three innings.

ONE UP:

Outfield defense: In the big scheme of things, it didn’t impact the outcome, but the Sox got two terrific

plays from their Gold Glove outfielders, as Jackie Bradley Jr. took extra bases away in running down a ball

in the gap in the fourth and Betts robbed D.J. LeMahieu of a double in the ninth with an astounding leaping

catch in the eighth.

ONE DOWN:

Darwinzon Hernandez: No one questions the quality of Hernandez’s stuff, but control continues to be an issue. In an inning and a third in relief, he walked two and has now allowed three weeks in his last 1.2

innings.

QUOTE OF NOTE

“Just couldn’t make a pitch to get that out of that inning.” David Price on the third.

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING:

Despite losing their last eight games, the Red Sox have homered in each of them, giving them the second-

longest losing streak with homers in the last 100 years. The Yankees scored six runs in the third, marking the fifth time this season that they’ve scored six or more

runs in an inning against the Sox.

In addition to the eight-game overall losing streak, the Sox have also lost their five in a row on the road.

This trip marked their first losing road trip since April.

UP NEXT: The Red Sox return home for the start of a seven-game homestand, and will host Kansas City at

7:10 p.m. RHP Rick Porcello (9-8, 5.74) faces RHP Mike Montgomery (1-4, 6.34).

* The Athletic

At this point, it would take an unprecedented turnaround for Red Sox to reach playoffs Chad Jennings

The Red Sox have 48 games left. If they win every single one of them, they will not match last year’s win

total. At this point, winning just one would be an accomplishment.

Only a week after finally putting themselves back into the playoff picture, the defending World Series

champions have fallen so far so fast that simply sneaking in as the wild card will require an unprecedented

turnaround. Since the current postseason format was introduced in 2012, no team has earned a wild-card

spot after falling as far out of the race with as few wins as the Red Sox have today. They’ve gone more than

a week without a win. They are four games above .500, 14 1/2 games out of the division and 6 1/2 games

out of the second wild card.

It is every bit as bad as it seems.

Sunday was another low point in a week full of them. Facing a Yankees lineup further depleted by injuries

— with Gio Urshela batting cleanup and Triple-A call-ups filling the bottom third — David Price couldn’t

get through the third inning. Facing J.A. Happ, a Yankees starter with a 5.19 ERA — who, like Price, just

returned from paternity leave — the Red Sox offense couldn’t score a run until the fifth, and their top three

hitters went 1-for-12 for the night. The loss was their eighth in a row, all against the two teams ahead of

them in the division standings. And just so everyone could see this latest indignity, the game was broadcast

nationally on ESPN — a Sunday Night Baseball showcase of just how lopsided this rivalry has become.

“We’ve got to play better,” Alex Cora said, for surely the hundredth time this year.

All season, there’s been at least some sense that the “real” Red Sox would show up eventually. Perhaps

they couldn’t be as good as last year, but surely they were good enough to play in October. They got on a

bit of a roll in early May, then won five of six heading into the break, and as of July 27 they’d again won

five of six to move into a tie for the second wild-card spot.

They’ve done nothing but lose ever since, and the trade deadline has come and gone without the bullpen

upgrade most expected seven months ago. Red Sox starters had a 12.38 ERA this weekend despite the

Yankees adding the 15th and 16th names to their injured list, a list that includes more than half of their

projected everyday lineup. Three of the Yankees’ four starting pitchers had ERAs above 4.70 coming into this series, and still they swept the Red Sox by a combined score of 26-12. Mookie Betts, Rafael Devers

and Xander Bogaerts went 4-for-46.

Inside the Yankees clubhouse, their postgame celebration song was “More Than a Feeling,” an out-of-the-

ordinary selection. It’s surely no coincidence the song is by the band Boston.

“It’s been a tough week and a half for us,” Price said. “We had a good series down in Tampa and then a

good series against New York at home. Ever since then, it hasn’t been the same.”

Half of Boston’s remaining games are against teams with losing records, including its next seven at home.

If the Red Sox win every remaining series — including winning three of four and sweeping two-game sets — they will add 35 victories, giving them 94 for the season. That’s the same number of wins FanGraphs

projects for the Indians this year. It’s three more than projected for the Rays and five more than projected

for the A’s. It would be, in theory, enough to win a wild-card spot.

It would also be unprecedented for this team. Winning every series left would mean winning 16 series in a

row. The Red Sox have won 15 series total up to this point. At their best, they won four straight in early

May before failing to win five of their next six.

And the margin for error is tiny. If the remaining four-game and two-game series are splits instead of wins,

the Red Sox win total would dip to 88. That’s exactly what FanGraphs projected for the Red Sox before

Sunday night’s game — a projection that had them finishing three games out of the final playoff spot,

which should not be surprising.

Since the second wild card was introduced in 2012, only two teams have won a wild-card spot with fewer

than 60 wins through 114 games (the Red Sox are currently 59-55). The 2017 Twins and 2016 Mets did it,

but at this point in the season, both were far closer to a wild-card spot than the Red Sox are today. And both

went on to lose in the wild-card game itself.

And those are the optimistic comparisons.

The 2017 Brewers were also 59-55 through 114 games, 5 1/2 games out of the second wild card, and they

finished a game out of the final playoff spot. The 2015 Nationals were 58-56, 7 1/2 games out of the second

wild card, and they finished a whopping 14 games out (they were closer to winning their division). The Red Sox are not in a good spot and not in good company.

“I mean, we know where we are at,” Cora said. “We’re going to go home, and that Green Monster is going

to remind us where we are. There’s no hiding. We know we’re talented and we can do it. It’s just a matter

of start doing it now.”

Even now might be too late.

* The New York Times

Expecting Success, Injuries or Not

Tyler Kepner

Every day is fraught with worry for the Yankees. They made no trades at last week’s deadline. Their

rotation is ordinary, their bullpen exhausted, their lineup crumbling. When Gio Urshela fouled a ball off his

right thigh in the sixth inning Sunday night, the most predictable thing happened a few moments later: a

foul off his left shin, of course.

“I was going up and down the dugout saying, ‘He’s going to hit a home run right here, it’s just bound to

happen,’” Aaron Judge said. “The whole crowd was chanting his name. But this whole team’s tough. We know what we’ve been through.”

Urshela did not hit a home run, alas — he bounced to the pitcher — but by then he had already gone deep

off David Price in a 7-4 Yankees victory that sealed a four-game sweep of the Boston Red Sox. At 72-39,

the Yankees carry the American League’s best record into a stretch of 11 games against the lowly

Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays.

“A little swollen,” said Urshela, whose legs were heavily bandaged after the game, “but I think I’m good.”

These would not be the Yankees, though, without some kind of troubling news: The All-Star infielder

Gleyber Torres has a core muscle issue, Manager Aaron Boone said after the game, and was taken to a

hospital for tests.

The Yankees have already sent Luke Voit (sports hernia), Edwin Encarnacion (broken right wrist) and

Aaron Hicks (right flexor strain) to the injured list in the last five days. They have 16 players on the major

league injured list, the most in the game, and now the dynamic Torres is at risk.

“It’s been a crazy year in that way, with the amount of things that have happened to guys physically,”

Boone said. “But it’s also been a real rallying cry for us. It’s not just brought a level of physical toughness

to the room, but it’s forced guys to be mentally tough as well. It’s part of the hunger that exists with those

guys, because they have the mindset of: Nothing’s going to get in our way and nothing’s going to stop us.”

The Yankees would surely welcome Encarnacion, Hicks, Voit and the other injured starters, Giancarlo Stanton and Gary Sanchez, back to the offense. They would love to add Luis Severino and Dellin Betances,

who have been hurt all season, to the pitching staff. Some combination of that group will return down the

stretch.

But the Yankees expect success either way — and while every team likes to say that, Boone’s team lives up

to it. The Red Sox have their health, but a middling record (59-55). The Yankees are chronically injured but

soaring.

In the clubhouse afterward, the Yankees played “More Than A Feeling” — by Boston, naturally — and got

a pep talk from winning pitcher J.A. Happ, the players’ pick for star of the game.

“He won the belt tonight, for what a performance he did against a really good offense,” Judge said. “Anytime Jay speaks, he controls a room. He’s a veteran, he’s been around the game for a long time, done

a lot of great things in this game. ‘Keep moving forward,’ that was his biggest message, just keep moving

forward no matter what.”

Happ, 36, blanked the Red Sox for a while on Sunday before giving up four runs in the fifth and sixth.

Boston knocked him out early in the playoff opener at Fenway last October, but the Red Sox are sinking

fast now.

“A sweep is hard against any team, especially a four-game sweep and especially against these guys,” Happ said. “Anytime you can put a little distance from a team in your division, it’s huge.”

After humbling Chris Sale twice in a week, the Yankees leveled Price this time. Though he buried his big-

game demons with a sterling World Series last fall, Price is 1-7 with a 9.61 earned run average for Boston

at Yankee Stadium. The fans dialed up a classic for him after Judge’s homer in the first: “Who’s Your

Daddy?”, the old Pedro Martinez salute.

The weekend thrashing left the Red Sox six and a half games out of a wild card spot and 14½ behind the

Yankees in the East, with Tampa Bay in between. The Red Sox can hit, but their pitching has abandoned

them. Their five starters have a combined E.R.A. of 4.84, and only a true diehard could name more than

two Red Sox relievers.

Of course, the Yankees’ pitchers looked just as vulnerable at Fenway at the end of July, when the Red Sox

flattened them for 38 runs in the first three games. The Minnesota Twins and the Houston Astros, both

leading their divisions, also have slugging contact hitters and present similar problems.

The Astros added two starting pitchers, Zack Greinke and Aaron Sanchez, at the deadline, plus a reliever

and a catcher. Sanchez was 3-14 for Toronto but fired the first six innings of a combined no-hitter in his

Houston debut on Saturday.

The Yankees chose not to strengthen their pitching at the deadline, passing up every possible deal that

could have helped the major league team. The prices were too steep, said General Manager Brian Cashman,

who deserves the benefit of the doubt. Without the depth Cashman and his staff have assembled since last summer, this season would be a fiasco.

But you have to wonder why outfielder Clint Frazier remains in the organization. He was passed over again

for a promotion when the Yankees placed Hicks on the injured list Sunday, and Boone said the Yankees did

not even consider him. Frazier posted a cryptic but sad-looking photo on Instagram Sunday night — he is

hanging his head under a red hoodie, with a “Scranton Life” sign lit up in the background — but he can hit

and should be on a major league roster. If the Yankees truly have no use for Frazier, they should have dealt

him, if only to improve around the margins.

Then again, the biggest lesson from this season is that, improbably, the Yankees really do have the answers

within. Whenever one sturdy piece falls, another sprouts in its place.

The questions the Yankees absorb every day are real, and in October they might struggle to overcome all

the issues. But for now the evidence keeps mounting, right there in the won-loss record: with this team, in

this season, the obstacles have not mattered.

* The New York Daily News

Yankees punish David Price at the Stadium yet again and complete series sweep against the Red Sox

Bradford William Davis

The Yankees set aside their injury woes Sunday and gave David Price an unflinching reminder that the Stadium is a place where the lefty’s nightmares come true. Gio Urshela hit a two-run blast that kicked off a

six-run third inning against David Price, chasing Price into the Yankee Stadium visitor’s dugout after 2.2

innings. Price received a standing ovation for his efforts.

It’s not exactly how the Yankees drew it up at the start of the season, but the Bombers will take the 7-4 win

and four-game sweep into Baltimore to face the Orioles. They may have to do so shorthanded, as both

Urshela and weekend hero Gleyber Torres left the game with injuries.

Urshela, who has embodied the Yankees’ “next man up” philosophy, was removed from the game after fouling pitches off both knees in the bottom of the sixth, replaced by recent call-up Breyvic Valera in the

ninth. (The second foul sent Urshela on his back, writhing in pain.) Torres was pulled from the game in the

eighth inning with a core issue. He was being evaluated after the game, said Boone.

Gleyber Torres and Gio Urshela both exit late in Yankees-Red Sox series finale »

J.A. Happ told his teammates to "keep the blinders on,” despite the numerous distractions. “The injuries,

the trade deadline, you know, performance, all these things going on that we try to ignore. I think we’ve

done a good job.”

Aaron Judge echoed Happ’s informal post-game address. “We still got a job to do,” said Judge. “Each guy

is gonna step up and keep doing their job. The coolest thing about this no one’s trying to take a load on

themselves. Everyone is trying to pass the baton and share their responsibility. If I do my job, I know the guy behind me is gonna do his job.”

Urshela drew a walk Sunday to go along with his 12th home run of the year, raising his batting line to

.314/.359/.522. Per Fangraphs, his offense has been 29 percent better than the league average. Then, after

the aforementioned foul balls, Urshela exemplified the 2019 Yankees’ trademark resilience and finished the

at-bat, provoking a roaring, packed Yankee Stadium crowd to chant his name. He took his place back at

third until Valera relieved him in the ninth inning.

Both of Urshela’s legs were wrapped up in the Yankees locker room and he walked with a noticeable limp,

but the third baseman expects to play in Baltimore.

In nine career starts at Yankee Stadium as a member of the Red Sox, Price has one win, which came on

June 3. The stadium faithful even started a vintage, Pedro Martinez-era “Who’s your daddy?” chant as the

Sox collected their starter.

Happ, meanwhile, cruised through the first four innings but allowed back-to-back solo shots to Christian

Vasquez and Michael Chavis in the fifth inning before allowing two more in the sixth.

Luis Cessa squashed the Sox rally, helping Happ improve his record to 9-6. The Yankees swingman struck

out three in his 2.1 innings of relief work.

Boone was encouraged by Happ’s outing. “I thought he was on the attack all night and dictating counts,”

said Boone. He also praised Happ’s mixing of two and four-seamers -- the lefty used both fastballs in roughly equal measure “That was really good to see.”

Happ also won the battle of the dads — both he and Price were placed on paternity leave on the same day,

and both returned to make their scheduled matchup Sunday.

Chad Green closed out the sox to nail his second save of the season and ensure the series sweep.

Aaron Judge, reflecting on the four-game thrashing, was blunt in his assessment. “It’s what we’re supposed

to do,” he said.

* The New York Post

The Yankees aren’t done making life miserable for David Price

Zach Braziller

David Price became father to a baby girl this weekend, but the Yankees remain his daddy.

At least that’s the message the sellout crowd of 47,267 sent the southpaw Sunday night as the AL East

leaders hammered Price yet again in The Bronx to close out a four-game sweep with a commanding 7-4 victory over the skidding Red Sox.

“Who’s your daddy, who’s your daddy” — the same derisive chant aimed at Pedro Martinez years ago —

could be heard several times during Price’s rocky 2 ²/₃-inning effort, and for good reason. The five-time

All-Star was blistered for nine hits, seven for extra bases, and seven earned runs as the Red Sox lost their

eighth straight game and fell a whopping 14 ¹/₂ games behind the Yankees in the AL East. In eight starts

with the Red Sox against the Yankees, he’s pitched to a 9.61 ERA, allowing 16 homers and 67 hits over 39

¹/₃ innings.

“I’ve faced them a lot, I’ve just got to learn something different,” he said, when asked about his struggles

against the Yankees. “It’s a good hitting team. They put the ball in play, they hit it hard. They make it

tough on me.”

Price got to New York late Saturday night after spending three days with his wife, Tiffany, for the birth of

their second child. He maintained his absence didn’t affect his performance and there were never any

doubts about taking the ball.

“I wasn’t going to miss this start,” Price said.

Of course, Price hasn’t pitched well at all of late. The Red Sox lost each of his four previous starts and his

ERA was a ghastly 6.52. His last time out, Price lasted only 4 ¹/₃ innings and gave up nine hits and four

runs in a loss to the Rays. His ERA now sits at 4.36 as he fell to 7-5 on the season.

After giving up a solo homer to Aaron Judge in the first, Price seemed to find his footing. He worked

around a Kyle Higashioka double in the second and recorded two outs with just a runner on first in the

third.

But then everything fell apart. Seven straight Yankees reached base. By the time the carnage was over, his

night was finished, and the Yankees had pushed six runs across the plate. The crowd serenaded him with a

mock standing ovation as he walked off the mound, a fitting end to the brutal weekend.

Just eight days ago, the Red Sox were only eight games behind the Yankees, but they haven’t won since,

and now sit 6 ¹/₂ games out of the AL’s second wild card.

“Overall,” manager Alex Cora said, “a horrible week.”

Yankees complete sweep of Red Sox as injury concerns grow

Dan Martin

The Yankees are on pace to have more than enough wins to get to the postseason.

Whether they have enough healthy players to do anything when they get there remains to be seen.

During yet another victory over the reeling Red Sox, the Yankees saw Gio Urshela drill foul balls off both

his legs in the sixth, forcing him to leave the game two innings later and then Gleyber Torres exited with a core-muscle issue in the eighth.

Still, they hung on for a fifth straight win and finished off a sweep of their rivals with a 7-4 victory in front

of another sellout in The Bronx.

It got the Yankees to a season-high 33 games over .500 (72-39), but they also had Aaron Hicks go on the

injured list with a right flexor strain, joining what amounts to more than half a roster on the IL.

“This whole team is tough,’’ Aaron Judge said. “We know what we’ve been through, so I think that’s what

motivates us. We know how hard everyone is working and how beat up everybody is. We’ve got to stay in there and keep fighting.’’

That’s what they did Sunday, as they stayed eight games ahead of second-place Tampa Bay.

A day after the Yankees scored seven two-out runs against Chris Sale in the fourth inning, they pounded

David Price for six runs in the third — again, all with two out.

Neither high-priced lefty finished the fourth inning, as the Yankees recorded their fifth consecutive victory

and the Red Sox dropped their eighth in a row, matching their longest losing streak since 2015.

Judge got to Price quickly, hitting his first homer since July 20 in the bottom of the first. But it was the

third inning when the Yankees did most of their damage.

Urshela — hitting cleanup — started the onslaught with a two-out, two-run homer to give the Yankees a 3-

0 lead.

In all, seven straight batters reached before Price departed, with key hits coming from Cameron Maybin,

Mike Ford — just called up from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to take Hicks’ spot — and Kyle

Higashioka, here only because Gary Sanchez is also on the crowded IL.

A two-run single by Mike Tauchman made it 7-0 and after Price walked Torres, he was finally yanked after

allowing a season-high in runs and seeing his Yankee Stadium ERA since 2016 rise to 9.61.

Yankees starter J.A. Happ, like Price, just off the paternity list, cruised until there was one out in the fifth.

He gave up two runs in both the fifth and sixth innings before Luis Cessa entered and got out of a jam. The

right-hander tossed 2 ¹/₃ hitless innings to save the pen before Chad Green finished it with a scoreless ninth.

The Red Sox left The Bronx 14 ½ games behind the Yankees, a shell of the team that won the World Series

last season.

“That’s what we’re supposed to do,’’ Judge said of the sweep. “We’re a first-place team. We went out there

and took care of business.”

They’ll likely continue to do so on their upcoming road trip, which begins Monday against the dreadful

Orioles and continues in Toronto.

But the Yankees have bigger goals in mind than racking up wins in the regular season.

“It’s been a crazy year that way, with the amount of things that have happened to guys physically, but it’s

also been something that’s been a real rallying cry for us,’’ Boone said. “I think it’s not just brought a level

of physical toughness to the room, but it’s forced guys to be mentally tough as well.”

They’ll be tested further, if they lose Torres, though Torres’ father took to Twitter to say his son is OK and

will travel with the team to Baltimore.

“You can’t really think about it,’’ Judge said of the injuries. “You keep moving along. … We’ve still got a job to do and a lot of baseball to play in October.”

* The USA Today

New York Yankees complete four-game sweep of reeling Boston Red Sox

Pete Caldera

A couple of times early on Sunday night, pockets of nostalgic Yankees fans serenaded Red Sox starter David Price with an old chestnut from the rivalry’s album.

“Who’s Your Daddy?!’’ could be heard around Yankee Stadium, famously chanted at Pedro Martinez.

And that’s before Price became deeply submerged in another Bronx nightmare, dragging the defending

world champions further away from contention.

Price couldn’t retire any of the final seven Yankees he faced in a six-run third inning. And the Yankees’

early seven-run lead boosted them toward a 7-4 victory before 47,267 fans.

Of course, the Yankees couldn't escape nine innings without two more injury scares.

Lifted for a defensive replacement in the eighth inning, Gleyber Torres exited with a core muscle issue and

was being examined at a local hospital on Sunday night.

And X-rays came back negative for Gio Urshela, who fouled a ball off his right knee and off his left shin

during the same sixth inning at-bat.

The third baseman's legs stiffened up and he was replaced defensively in the ninth.

"I think I'll be good,'' said Urshela, struggling to pull on a pair of sweatpants over both legs, with

compression wraps.

Urshela felt he could play in Monday's series opener but Torres' status is unknown.

What crisis?

A full week after the Yankees rotation failed them miserably – including a stretch of three straight losses to

the Red Sox at Fenway Park – Aaron Boone’s club completed a four-game sweep of the Sox.

That hadn’t happened in the Bronx since Aug. 6-9, 2009, the Yankees' last world championship season.

* The Bergen Record

Yankees might have buried all Red Sox hopes in the AL East, completing four-game sweep

Pete Caldera

A couple of times early on Sunday night, pockets of nostalgic Yankees fans serenaded Red Sox starter

David Price with an old chestnut from the rivalry’s album.

“Who’s Your Daddy?!’’ could be heard around Yankee Stadium, famously chanted at Pedro Martinez.

And that’s before Price became deeply submerged in another Bronx nightmare, dragging the defending

world champions further away from contention.

Price couldn’t retire any of the final seven Yankees he faced in a six-run third inning. And the Yankees’

early seven-run lead boosted them toward a 7-4 victory before 47,267 fans.

Of course, the Yankees couldn't escape nine innings without two more injury scares.

Lifted for a defensive replacement in the eighth inning, Gleyber Torres exited with a core muscle issue and

was being examined at a local hospital on Sunday night. In a positive spin on this news, Torres was on the

team bus heading to the airport for the trip to Baltimore, meaning he may be able to play.

And X-rays came back negative for Gio Urshela, who fouled a ball off his right knee and off his left shin

during the same sixth inning at-bat.

The third baseman's legs stiffened up and he was replaced defensively in the ninth.

"I think I'll be good,'' said Urshela, struggling to pull on a pair of sweatpants over both legs, with

compression wraps.

Urshela felt he could play in Monday's series opener but Torres' playing status is unknown.

"I'm not sure,'' manager Aaron Boone said. "He had some tests. Hopefully, we'll have an idea in a little bit.''

What crisis?

A full week after the Yankees rotation failed them miserably – including a stretch of three straight losses to

the Red Sox at Fenway Park – Boone’s club completed a four-game sweep of the Sox.

That hadn’t happened in the Bronx since Aug 6-9, 2009, the Yankees last world championship season.

“It’s what we’re supposed to do, being a first-place team,’’ said Aaron Judge, who got it started off Price

with a first-inning, solo homer – the slugger’s first home run July 19 against Colorado, snapping a season-

long, 14-game drought.

“We just went out there and took care of business, it doesn’t matter who we’re playing.’’

Now, the third-place Red Sox are just trying to cling to a wild-card hope. They’re 14.5 games behind the

AL East-leading Yankees, a club that continues to withstand injury after injury to key players.

More: Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez due back in the lineup by the weekend at Toronto

More: Aaron Hicks goes on IL for Yankees with right flexor strain injury

“It’s a credit to so many people across the board who have stepped up and impacted us winning games,’’

Boone said of his 72-39 club, eight games ahead of the second-place Tampa Bay Rays.

“That’s why anything that’s come up, whether it’s been injury or a bump in the road in the season, anything adverse that seems to happen to this group, they don’t flinch.

“And they know what the expectation is and they’ve gone out and delivered.’’

Familiar theme

Boone’s lineup had a different look in the series finale, Torres leading off and Urshela batting cleanup with

D.J. LeMahieu not starting and two more big fixtures out of the picture for now.

“That was tough, losing two significant guys’’ in one day, Boone said of Edwin Encarnacion (fractured

wrist) and Aaron Hicks (flexor strain) getting hurt in Saturday’s day-night doubleheader sweep and landing

on the injured list.

Yet, "you know the guys will respond in an awesome way.’’

Aug 4, 2019; Bronx, NY, USA; New York Yankees third baseman Gio Urshela (29) is congratulated after

hitting a two run home run against the Boston Red Sox during the third inning at Yankee Stadium.

Aug 4, 2019; Bronx, NY, USA; New York Yankees third baseman Gio Urshela (29) is congratulated after

hitting a two run home run against the Boston Red Sox during the third inning at Yankee Stadium. (Photo:

Andy Marlin-USA TODAY Sports)

That’s what happened with two out in the third, as the Yankees strung together six-straight hits and brought Price’s night to an abrupt end.

Urshela’s two-run homer was followed by a Brett Gardner double, a Cameron Maybin RBI double, a Mike

Ford RBI single, Kyle Higashioka’s second double of the night and a two-run single by Mike Tauchman.

After Torres walked, Price walked off the mound and into the dugout, chased by a standing ovation mixed

with boos and other assorted unpleasantries.

It’s a scene Price has been all too familiar with.

According to baseball researcher Katie Sharp, the Red Sox lefty has a hefty 9.61 ERA at Yankee Stadium

since the start of the 2016 season.

That is the highest ERA for any pitcher at any MLB park in that span, with a minimum of six starts.

Happ talk

Staked to a 7-0 lead, J.A. Happ gave up back-to-back homers to Christian Vazquez and Michael Chavis in

the fifth.

And after getting the first two out in the sixth, Happ (9-6) needed Luis Cessa’s help to finish the inning

after yielding a two-run single to Andrew Benintendi and bringing the tying run to the plate.

Chad Green would pick up the save.

For his efforts, Happ was awarded the team’s “championship belt’’ after the win, which requires a short

speech.

“Let’s keep the blinders on,’’ Happ said he told his teammates, continuing to ignore outside distractions,

such as the trade discussions leading up to last Wednesday’s deadline.

And the theme that this club missed an opportunity to make necessary pitching upgrades before October.

“It was a tough time, a tough week,’’ Happ said of the staff. “But in here, we knew we could bounce

back.’’

* The Newark Star Ledger

Yankees finish off 4-game sweep of Red Sox | Gleyber Torres hurt; Gio Urshela banged up, too

Randy Miller

Stick a fork in the Boston Red Sox. They won’t be winning the American League East for a fourth year in a

row.

The first-place Yankees surely killed any hope of a late-season miracle over the weekend at Yankee

Stadium by sweeping four games from the Red Sox, who have lost nine in a row and now are a whopping 14 1/2 games back in the division.

The Yankees made it four straight on Sunday night with a 7-4 win that included yet another injury.

Yankees center fielder Aaron Hicks exited Game 2 of Saturday's doubleheader in the eighth inning with a

sore right elbow.

All-Star second baseman Gleyber Torres is the latest to go down, as he suffered a “core issue” during the

game. He left after the seventh inning with the Yanks up three runs to go to a hospital for tests.

“We’re not sure (when it happened),” manager Aaron Boone said. “We’ll let it at that for now. We’ll find

out more soon."

Also, third baseman Gio Urshela contributed to a game-turning, six-run Yankees third with a two-run

homer off Red Sox starter David Price (8-4), but then had a very painful sixth-inning at-bat in which he

fouled a pitch above his right knee and two pitches later fouled one off his left shin.

Urshela tried to gut his way through the game, but was pulled in the top of the ninth.

“He’s sore,” Boone said. “We X-rayed (his knees) to be safe. Negative. It stiffened up on him pretty good.”

The Yankees lost two regulars during their day-night doubleheader sweep on Saturday, as first

baseman/DH Edwin Encarnacion suffered a hairline left wrist fracture in Game 1 and center fielder Aaron

Hicks suffered a right flexor strain in the nightcap.

Amazingly, the Yankees are 72-39 and up eight games on the second-place Tampa Bay Rays despite

having 25 players go on the IL this season for 32 total stints.

On Sunday, left-hander J.A. Happ (9-6) came off the paternity list and pitched into the sixth. Handed a 7-0

lead by the third inning, Happ fared well until allowing two solo homers in the fifth and two more runs in

the sixth in a four-run, 5 1/3-inning outing.

Price, who also returned from paternity leave, had a terrible night for Boston, allowing seven runs over 2

2/3 innings.

The Yankees had the lead for good by the first inning when Aaron Judge homered with out one for a 1-0

lead, his 12th of the season ending a homerless streak at 56 at-bats.

LOOKING AHEAD

Monday: Yankees at Baltimore Orioles, 7:05 p.m., YES. RHP Masahiro Tanaka (7-6, 4.78) vs. RHP

Gabriel Ynoa (1-6, 5.55).

Tuesday: Yankees at Baltimore Orioles, 7:05 p.m., YES, TBA vs. RHP Asher Wojciechowski (2-4, 4.15).

Wednesday: Yankees at Baltimore Orioles, 7:05 p.m., YES. LHP James Paxton (6-6, 4.61) vs. LHP John

Means (8-6, 3.12).

Red Sox buried by Yankees in AL East, but continue to believe in playoff push

Brian Fonseca

Things have not looked this bad for the Red Sox in quite some time.

A little under four years, to be exact.

Boston fell to 14 1/2 games behind the AL East-leading Yankees following a 7-4 loss at Yankee Stadium

on Sunday night, all but ending any hopes of a miraculous comeback to win the division title for the fourth

straight season.

The last time the Red Sox were that far behind the top of the division was the end of 2015, the franchise’s

latest losing season, when they finished 15 games behind the division champion Toronto Blue Jays.

Is this season headed in the same direction?

The injury bug plaguing the New York Yankees this season extended to first base this week with Edwin

Encarnacion and Luke Voit suffering knocks that keep them out indefinitely. What is the plan? Who is

filling in for them?

Despite being on the first eight-game losing streak since the middle of July 2015, Red Sox manager Alex

Cora said his club has no trouble remaining positive about the rest of the season.

“We know where we’re at,” Cora said. “We’re going to go home and the Green Monster is going to remind

us where we’re at. There’s no hiding, but we know we’re talented and we can do it. It’s just a matter of

doing it now.”

With just about two months of baseball left to play, Boston is effectively out of the division race and six games behind of division opponent Tampa Bay Rays for the second wild-card playoff spot.

The Red Sox will definitely not finish last in the division this season — Baltimore and Toronto are two of

the worst teams in baseball, both doubling Boston’s first-place deficit — but they could will finish third

among the three competitive teams in the AL East.

But the Red Sox still belief in themselves.

“Absolutely, and I think everybody in this clubhouse believes it as well,” said Sunday’s starting and losing

pitcher David Price. “Everyone has to do their part. That’s all we need. We don’t need anybody to be extra

special, just everybody, 1 through 25, to pull your own weight and start winning baseball games again."

“We trust these guys, we’re going to roll them out there and we’re working to help them make an impact,”

Cora added. “There is no doubt in my mind these guys can turn it around.”

Why Red Sox’s David Price thinks Yankees keep hammering him

Brian Fonseca

Red Sox star left-hander David Price appeared to have overcome the issues that followed him into every

matchup against the Yankees throughout the 2018 season earlier this year.

The pitcher put together a quality start in his first 2019 outing against the Yanks, getting the win after giving up just two runs and six hits over 6 1/3 innings in an 8-5 Boston victory on June 2 at Yankee

Stadium.

It looked vastly different from the performances that garnered an 0-3 record with a massive 10.34 ERA and

nine home runs surrendered in four games against the Yankees last season.

That progress was dismantled in a single inning Sunday.

The New York Yankees' win over the Red Sox on Sunday pushed Boston to their biggest deficit from the

top of the AL East in nearly four years.

The Yankees demolished Price in the third inning of Sunday’s series finale at Yankee Stadium, bringing in

six runs on six hits to blow the game wide open. The Yanks eventually wrapped up the contest with a 7-4

win, handing Price his fifth loss of the season and pushing his record against New York as a Red Sox to a

horrid 3-8.

“I face them a lot,” Price said. “I got to find something different. It’s a good hitting team, put the ball in

play, hit it hard and make it tough on them.”

The explosive third included Price giving up hits to a number of Yankees who were viewed as backup

options during spring training — catcher Kyle Higashioka, and outfielders Brett Gardner and Cameron Maybin hit doubles in between singles from first baseman Mike Ford and Mike Tauchman.

The decision to keep Price on the mound despite the fact he was getting carved up came down to preserving

the bullpen, according to manager Alex Cora.

“There was two outs," Cora said. "We’re one pitch away from finishing that (inning) and we know where

we were bullpen wise. We were hoping for him to finish that inning and go out again (for the fourth).

"The fastball was good velocity wise and location wise early. It was one of those innings that just

snowballed. You’re trying to get one more out because you don’t want to put your team in a bad situation,

but it just kept going and going.”

Cora pointed to Price’s changeup as the culprit for the issues, with the pitch repeatedly cutting into the zone

and allowing New York’s hitters to feast.

Price struggled to find the one pitch to salvage the situation.

“Just couldn’t make a pitch to get out of it,” he said. “I got two outs there and I just couldn’t make that

pitch to get that third out.”

In addition to the rough third inning, Price gave up a home run to Aaron Judge in the second at-bat of the

game.

Judge had not hit a home run in 56 prior at-bats over the course of 15 games.

It was a very tough night for Price overall, another in his haunted history against the Yankees. This time,

though, he had a reason outside of the baseball diamond for his struggles inside it.

Price had been away from the team for three days on paternity leave, rejoining the Red Sox on Saturday

night. He chose not to use it as an excuse, saying there was “no way” he would miss Sunday’s start.

“The baseball schedule is a lot tougher than that,” Price said. “To me, that was a great three days … just

going through that, it’s a really cool experience.”

Getting shelled by the Yankees once again was not a good experience, however. Price knows it, his manager knows it and the Boston fans scattered among the 47,267 in attendance at Yankee Stadium to

watch the home team’s offensive outburst know it.

“It wasn’t good,” Cora said. “We need to do better.”

* Associated Press

Judge, Yankees pound Price for 4-game sweep of Red Sox

A couple of things have remained constant for the New York Yankees all season: They keep getting hurt

and they keep winning games.

Aaron Judge and Gio Urshela homered early as a makeshift Yankees lineup pounded David Price in a 7-4

victory Sunday night that sent the defending World Series champion Boston Red Sox to their eighth

consecutive defeat.

But no pleasure comes without pain for the AL East leaders these days. All-Star second baseman Gleyber

Torres was lifted in the late innings because of a core issue and sent to the hospital for tests. Urshela was

replaced at third base in the ninth, a few innings after fouling a ball hard off each leg in a span of three

pitches.

"It's been a crazy year in that way, with the amount of things that have happened to guys physically,"

manager Aaron Boone said. "But it's also been something that's been a real rallying cry for us."

X-rays on Urshela were negative, though he had both legs wrapped after the game. He said he was feeling

better and planned to travel with the team to Baltimore.

With only three projected regulars in the batting order, the banged-up Yankees won their fifth straight and

completed the first four-game sweep of their longtime rivals since August 2009. New York (72-39)

maintained its eight-game division lead over Tampa Bay and dropped the third-place Red Sox a whopping

14 1/2 behind -- not to mention 6 1/2 games out of a playoff spot.

"That's what we're supposed to do. We're a first-place team," Judge said. "We just went out there and took

care of business. It doesn't matter who we play."

Boston has lost eight in a row for the first time since an eight-game skid in July 2015. And at 59-55, the

Red Sox have already lost more games than they did all last season while going 108-54.

"Overall, a horrible week," manager Alex Cora said. "There's no doubt in my mind these guys can turn it

around."

Handed a 7-0 lead after three innings, J.A. Happ (9-6) improved to 10-4 against the Red Sox, who finished

1-8 in the Bronx this year and are 4-11 in the season series. He beat Price in a matchup of starting pitchers who just came off paternity leave.

The rollicking sellout crowd of 47,267 gave a struggling Price (7-5) the Pedro Martinez treatment, chanting

"Who's your daddy?" during his latest flop at Yankee Stadium.

"I wasn't going to miss this start. That wasn't going to happen," Price said.

In the Yankees clubhouse after the game, Happ addressed his teammates with a message to keep moving

forward regardless of all the injuries.

"This whole team is tough. Everyone's tough. We know what we've been through, so I think that motivates

a lot of us," Judge said. "We know how hard it is. We know how beat up everybody is. We've got to stay in there and keep fighting."

The start was delayed 69 minutes due to a threat of rain, though it remained almost completely dry

throughout.

Happ sailed through four innings before Christian Vazquez and rookie Michael Chavis hit back-to-back

homers in the fifth. With two outs in the sixth, Andrew Benintendi chased Happ with a two-run single that

shaved it to 7-4.

Luis Cessa struck out Chavis with two on and worked 2 1/3 hitless innings. Chad Green got three outs for

his third major league save and second this season.

Judge sent a no-doubt solo drive into the elevated bleachers in right-center in the first. It was his first home

run in 58 at-bats since July 19.

Judge walked in the third and Urshela, batting cleanup, launched a two-run homer off the back wall of

Boston's bullpen in left-center. That was the first of six straight two-out hits -- four for extra bases -- and

then a walk that ended Price's night.

Brett Gardner and Cameron Maybin hit consecutive doubles. Mike Ford, a 27-year-old undrafted rookie out of Princeton wearing No. 74, had an RBI single. Third-string catcher Kyle Higashioka laced his second

double off Price, and No. 9 batter Mike Tauchman added a two-run single in a half-inning that took 28

minutes.

"It just snowballed," Cora said.

Price stood behind the mound, head lowered with his back to home plate, as he waited to be pulled after

throwing 75 pitches in only 2 2/3 innings. The left-hander gave up a season-high seven runs and nine hits

before walking slowly to the dugout. He is 0-3 with a 10.59 ERA in just 17 innings over his last four

outings.

Price also fell to 1-7 with a 9.61 ERA in eight starts at Yankee Stadium since signing a $217 million, seven-year contract to join the Red Sox before the 2016 season. The lone win came on June 2 this year.

"I've faced them a lot. Just got to find something different," Price said.

TRAINER'S ROOM

Yankees: CF Aaron Hicks went on the 10-day injured list with a flexor strain in his right elbow. Hicks

won't throw for a week to 10 days, but the team is optimistic he'll return this season. Gardner becomes the

primary center fielder. ... SS Didi Gregorius returned to the lineup for the first time since rolling over his

left wrist fielding a ball Wednesday. ... All-Star catcher Gary Sanchez likely will begin a minor league

rehab assignment this week and is expected to rejoin the Yankees next weekend in Toronto. ... Ford played first base, with DJ LeMahieu getting a rest after returning Friday from a sore groin. Edwin Encarnacion

(broken right wrist) and Luke Voit (sports hernia) are sidelined. LeMahieu entered for Torres in the eighth.

CHANGING SOX

Boston recalled RHP Ryan Weber from Triple-A Pawtucket and optioned RHP Colten Brewer, RHP Josh

Smith and INF Marco Hernandez to its top farm club. Weber threw four scoreless innings of relief.

UP NEXT

Red Sox: RHP Rick Porcello (9-8, 5.74 ERA) pitches Monday night against Kansas City LHP Mike

Montgomery in the opener of a seven-game homestand. The 2016 AL Cy Young Award winner was 4-1 in five July starts despite a 7.94 ERA.

Yankees: RHP Masahiro Tanaka (7-6, 4.78) takes the ball Monday night at last-place Baltimore when New

York begins a seven-game trip against two AL East also-rans. Tanaka hasn't lasted more than four innings

in either of his past two outings and is 1-4 with a 7.40 ERA on the road this year.