It was a tough Friday night for the Boston Red Sox.
Not only did they drop the first of a three-game set with the New York Yankees 4-1, Boston also lost its first baseman in the second inning.
Steve Pearce left the game after his first at-bat with what the team is calling back spasms. With Mitch Moreland already on the injured list due to a back strain, the Sox can ill afford to go down another infielder.
After the game, manager Alex Cora provided a vague update on the first baseman:
“I gotta go talk to him,” Cora said, as seen on NESN’s Red Sox postgame coverage. “… As soon as he came into the dugout he felt numbness in his legs. So we’ll address it … (and) see where we go.”
Although the team has options to fill the void should Pearce end up on the IL, it’s not a position they want to be in already being down a crucial part to its defense.
Here are some other notes from Friday’s Red Sox-Yankees game:
— Rafael Devers extended his hitting streak to 11 games in the second inning with a solo home run, his eighth of the season.
The third baseman has had quite the month of May, to say the least.
— Chris Sale struck out 10 batters in his outing but dropped to 1-7 on the season. The Red Sox now are 3-9 when the southpaw starts. And as he’s done all season, Sale put the blame on himself.
“I’m not going to sit here and throw anyone under the bus,” he said on NESN’s Red Sox postgame coverage. “If I don’t have a blow up third inning, we got ourselves a ball game. As a much as you can point a finger at anyone in this clubhouse you can point a finger right at me, too.”
— Eduardo Nunez had a huge baserunning blunder in the fifth inning when he was thrown out at second in an attempt to get back to the bag to end the inning and the threat of cutting in New York’s lead.
“He knows that can’t happen,” Cora said. “Seems like the last seven, eight days, we’ve regressed back to being sloppy around the bases, that can’t happen. He knows, so I don’t have to tell him, he messed it up.”
— Boston has struggled mightily against the Yankees this season, averaging just 1.3 runs per game and .170 team batting average.
The starter’s ERA is 4.24, while the bullpen has a whopping 10.29 ERA in three games against the Bronx Bombers this season.
