Yankees let Red Sox run wild, squander chances in 9-3 loss

Rizzo was safe, as Bernardino dropped the toss right before the contact, but he was quickly pulled from the game. He was replaced by pinch-runner Oswaldo Cabrera.

Rizzo is set to undergo further testing on Monday. It’s unclear how severe his injury is or how long he’ll be sidelined.

Rizzo, 34, holds a .223 batting average and has eight home runs and 28 RBI this season, his third full year with the Yankees. The injury Sunday was reminiscent of one he sustained last year, when he collided with Fernando Tatis Jr. at first base. That ended up ending his season early due to post-concussion syndrome.

Although the Yankees were down by just a run when Rizzo left the game, the Red Sox flew ahead to grab a six-run win at Fenway Park, thanks in part to Connor Wong’s two-run triple in the bottom of the seventh. Boston had an incredible nine stolen bases in the win, the most in the league in a single game this season and the most the Yankees have allowed since 1915.

The Yankees, who have lost three of their past four, hold a 50-24 record and lead the AL East. They’ll kick off a three-game series with the Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday.

The Yankees couldn’t contain the Red Sox on the basepaths and the bats were held in check in a 9-3 defeat at Fenway Park on Sunday night.

New York fell to 50-24 on the season and after dropping two of three over the weekend their lead is down to 1.5 over Baltimore in the AL East. Boston stole a franchise-record nine bases on the night and improved to 37-35 on the season.

– With two down in the first, Aaron Judge got a breaking pitch that hovered over the middle of the plate and hit a soaring home run over the Green Monster. The 380-foot dinger (114.2 mph off the bat) was like a punt, it had seven seconds of hang time as the slugger launched his 26th of the season with a 45-degree launch angle.

But other than that, the Yanks had nothing off Boston right-hander Kutter Crawford who did not allow another hit (with just one walk) through five frames with seven strikeouts. He needed 65 pitches to get 15 outs, tallying 11 whiffs (on 33 Yankee swings) and 14 called strikes.

Yankees let Red Sox run wild, squander chances in 9-3 loss

– But it wasn’t until the seventh when the game got away from the Yanks. In the top of the inning, the Red Sox turned to the bullpen to protect a one-run lead. Alex Verdugo and Giancarlo Stanton immediately pounced on lefty Brennan Bernardino with singles. Anthony Rizzo then hit a tapper to first, and first baseman Dominic Smith’s bad throw to Bernandino covering loaded the bases on the Sox’s 53rd error of the season (most in MLB).

On the play, Rizzo collided with the Boston reliever and was forced to exit the game with what the club called a “right lower arm” injury as he appeared to jar his wrist when breaking his fall.

Oswaldo Cabrera entered as a pinch-runner, but he was just a spectator as Alex Cora summoned Zack Kelly from the bullpen and he got Gleyber Torres to chase a 3-2 sweeper in the dirt (after the count was 3-0), Jose Tevino to go down swinging and DJ LeMahieu to fly out to squander the bases-loaded opportunity.

In the bottom half, left-hander Caleb Ferguson entered and walked the leadoff hitter before allowing a one-out single to put runners on the corners.

In came Luke Weaver but he couldn’t get the job done: Rafael Devers took a changeup on the outside corner and rocketed it (109 mph) up the middle for an RBI single and catcher Connor Wong took a cutter on the outside corner and lined it the other way past Verdugo in right for a two-run triple to make it a 7-3 ballgame.

– Marcus Stroman had a lead before he threw his first pitch, but couldn’t keep the Red Sox off the bases, beginning with a leadoff infield hit to start the game spoiling an otherwise clean first frame.

Stroman got the first two outs in the second easily but lost the strike zone to walk Enmanuel Valdez before Smith dropped a bloop single into right to cover the corners for Cedda nne Rafaela – who entered the game with eight hits in his last 15 at-bats. After Smith stole a second without a throw – a curious decision by the Yanks to concede the base – Rafaela worked a full count and yanked an outside slider up the middle for a two-run single.

Stroman allowed more traffic in the third, walking David Hamilton, who quickly stole second and got to third on Rob Refsnyder’s single. But Stroman managed to avoid the big inning getting a bouncer up the middle to a perfectly placed Anthony Volpe for a 6-3 double play that plated the Sox’s third run of the game but killed the potential rally.