After Saturday’s 5-2 loss to the Boston Red Sox, Yankees Manager Joe Girardi hurried to his postgame news conference and then sat in uncomfortable silence in a mostly empty room as reporters trickled in. The delay may have allowed Girardi to parse his thoughts, which would become poignant and direct.
“It’s got to turn around tomorrow,” Girardi said after his team sputtered to an 0-2 record out of the All-Star break. “This is probably as important a game that we’ve had in July in a long time.”
With expectations raised, the Yankees answered Girardi’s call and defeated the Red Sox on Sunday night, 3-1, at Yankee Stadium.
Masahiro Tanaka, pitching on six days of rest, baffled the Red Sox through six innings, allowing one run on three hits and striking out seven.
“We didn’t necessarily have like a meeting and talk about how important tonight’s game was, but I think everybody understood how important we needed to win today,” Tanaka said through an interpreter.
Throughout his major league career, Tanaka has pitched noticeably better with more than four days of rest between starts, which is customary in Japan, where he spent seven years before joining the Yankees in 2014.
Tanaka improved to 8-1 with six days or more of rest. On five days of rest, Tanaka is 17-7, but he is only 7-6 on four days of rest.
There was, however, a familiar ominous atmosphere surrounding the Yankees before the game. Last September, the Yankees entered what they described as their biggest series in years against the Toronto Blue Jays, only to discover that Mark Teixeira would be out for the season with a broken leg after having fouled a ball off his right shin.
On Saturday, shortly before Girardi made his proclamation, Teixeira fouled a ball off his left foot, sending him crumpling to the ground again. Girardi revealed on Sunday afternoon that Teixeira would not be available and instead was having a C.T. scan, even after X-rays taken after Saturday’s game showed no serious injury.
But in the first positive news of the day, the Yankees announced about 30 minutes before Sunday’s first pitch that Teixeira’s scan also showed nothing serious, and he is listed as day to day.
After leaving three runners on base over the first three innings, the Yankees finally strung together a rally in the fourth. Starlin Castro, Austin Romine and Jacoby Ellsbury notched run-scoring hits, pulling the Yankees ahead after Dustin Pedroia had hit a home run in the first inning.
Although Tanaka had thrown only 87 pitches, Girardi decided to call on the bullpen. Dellin Betances, Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman came through, combining to toss three scoreless innings and extending the bullpen’s streak of scoreless innings to 19.
Tanaka said that he was surprised to have been taken out after six but that he understood Girardi’s decision.
Of Tanaka, Girardi said: “I thought he gave us everything he had. I thought he aired it out in the sixth inning. I just said, you know, it’s an important game. We have those big three guys down there for a reason, so I’m going to go to them.”