Schadenfreude 214 (A Continuing Series)

Erik Boland, Newsday:

Well, that good feeling didn't last very long.

After beating the Red Sox on Thursday night to start a series Joe Girardi called the biggest of the season, the Yankees went quietly 24 hours later in a 4-1 loss in front of 43,332 at the Stadium.

[Doug] Fister retired 16 of the last 18 he faced and did not allow a runner to get in scoring position after the first. ...

[Sonny Gray] allowed home runs by former Yankee Eduardo Nunez — who irritated CC Sabathia the night before when he laid down a bunt — Andrew Benintendi and Hanley Ramirez. The Red Sox came in ranked 26th in the big leagues in homers with 142.

Christian Red, Daily News:

Red Sox shortstop Eduardo Nunez didn't attempt a bunt Friday night, unlike in the series opener between the Yankees and Red Sox Thursday, when his bunt off CC Sabathia sparked the big lefty's ire.

Instead, Nunez did far more damage to his old team, blasting a Sonny Gray offering into the left field stands in the third inning to give Boston the lead for good, as the Bombers lost 4-1 in front of 42,332 at Yankee Stadium.

Take that CC. Andrew Benintendi and Hanley Ramirez whacked solo homers off Gray, and the Yankees (71-63) dropped five and a half games behind Boston (77-58) in the American League East. ...

Boston right-hander Doug Fister, not an overpowering pitcher by any stretch, confounded the Bombers all night. After a hiccup in the first inning, Fister methodically worked through the Yankee lineup for seven innings ... He retired nine Yankees in a row during one stretch. ...

PLAY OF THE GAME: Eduardo Nunez's two-run home run. Plating two runs is usually greater than a bunt.

George A. King III, Post:

When a crucial four-game series against the Red Sox opened Thursday night at Yankee Stadium, the general belief was if the Yankees wanted to use September to win the AL East they needed to cop three of four.

Though that remains a possibility, it will necessitate the Yankees winning Saturday and Sunday after the Dead Bats Society gathered Friday night against Doug Fister and was the main cause of a 4-1 loss that was witnessed by a stadium gathering of 42,332. ...

Suddenly, the momentum built by Thursday's 6-2 Yankees win has vanished and has turned the next two games into the biggest of a season that is in the final leg of a six-month trot. ...

[I]f they want to give themselves a chance of avoiding the one-game gig that is the wild-card tilt, the Yankees need to take three of four from the Red Sox and move on to Baltimore within striking distance.

David Lennon, Newsday:

Sonny Gray would have been perfectly fine with a bunt or two from the Red Sox on Friday night. Instead, Eduardo Nunez swung away this time — as did Andrew Benintendi and Hanley Ramirez — and the resulting three-homer barrage did more than merely bruise Gray's ego in the Yankees' 4-1 loss, a crippling blow to their fading hopes in the AL East race.

What a sadistic twist of fate. ...

As irrational as Sabathia's anti-bunting rants were, seeing the Red Sox take Gray deep three times — they had only five hits in seven innings — was nearly as crazy. In five previous starts for the Yankees, Gray surrendered two homers in 30 innings. ...

Another issue? The Yankees develop an allergy to offense when Gray pitches. He's been backed by either one run or zero in all four of his losses, with the Yankees batting a collective .130 in defeat.

Larry Brooks, Post:

We have come full circle in the 98-year saga of the Yankees and Red Sox, haven't we, in graduating from the Curse of the Bambino to Nunee's Revenge.

Much to the chagrin of CC Sabathia, Eduardo Nunez did not even attempt to lay down a bunt Friday night as he did in so enraging the big lefty on Thursday ...

Instead ... Nunez took out the big stick and went deep on Sonny Gray with a man on the third inning to erase a 1-0 deficit and give the Sox a 2-1 lead they never relinquished on their way to a 4-1 victory at the Stadium on Friday.

"Bunt this!" he might as well have said with his bat a couple of hours after insisting small ball was his game ...

Sabathia's verbal slap against Nunez, absurd as it was, did at least injected a whiff of controversy and emotion into a rivalry that has essentially been running on muscle memory for the last dozen years. The verbal crossfire between Sabathia and Rice, and to an extent, Nunez, did add some extra flavor to a competition that has become vanilla no matter how many prime-time and marquee network slots it still commands.

Scott Lauber, ESPN:

Eduardo Nunez: "I know I don't have that big power like Aaron Judge." P.S.: Since the All-Star break, Nunez has outhomered Judge, 8-7.

Mike Mazzeo, Daily News:

Maybe Sonny Gray should've been better on this night, but he would've had to pitch a shutout to come out a winner.

Brett Gardner and Aaron Judge led off with back-to-back doubles against Doug Fister, but the Yankees went 2-for-29 with a walk the rest of the way in their lifeless 4-1 loss to the Red Sox on Friday at The Stadium.

That's simply not good enough -- especially versus a veteran soft-tosser in Fister who was picked up by Boston off release waivers from the Angels in late June.

The Bombers are now 5.5 games back of the BoSox in the AL East again -- their already slim chances of winning the division growing even slimmer by the day. ...

Gray, acquired at the trade deadline from the A's to serve as a No. 2-type starter, struck out nine in seven innings. But three of the five hits he allowed were homers.

If only Boston had bunted. ...

There is one concerning stat regarding Gray. In 10 starts against teams with .500 or better records in 2017, he has a 5.12 ERA. ...

The Yankees have gone from averaging 5.4 runs per game in the first half to 4.4 runs per game in the second half. ... They need more from everyone else in the lineup.

Ken Davidoff, Post:

What does it say about Sonny Gray that his first month as a Yankee can be described better by his last name than his first?

Or to be more fair, wouldn't you describe the 2017 Yankees' outlook overall as more gray than sunny and note that the right-hander hasn't done enough to change that? ...

Gray lost for a second time in two rivalry attempts ...

He couldn't keep up with his Boston counterpart, Doug Fister, the veteran whom the Red Sox picked up off the scrap heap earlier this season. ...

In giving up four earned runs, Gray established a new personal worst as a Yankee.

Zach Braziller, Post:

David Ortiz retired, but the Red Sox may have found a new weapon with which to torment their AL East rivals.

Rookie outfielder Andrew Benintendi continued to make himself at home at the Stadium on Friday night, blasting his fifth home run in The Bronx this year ... Ortiz never accomplished that feat, which was matched by just Jim Rice in 1983. ...

In eight games in The Bronx this year, he's hitting .393 (11-for-28), with five home runs and 12 RBIs, and he has gone deep four times this month there. All of them seem to be significant. ...

"Right field. The difference between here and Fenway [Park], it's a joke honestly," Benintendi said. "A popup to right, it's a home run."

When asked if he feels like a Yankees killer yet, Benintendi smiled, shook his head and played down his success against them.

"I think you need to earn that throughout the years. It's just my first year," he said. "I'd like to be."

Mike Mazzeo, Daily News:

CC Sabathia wasn't about to let "bitter" Jim Rice off the hook.

"It's just funny. He's right. I'm fat. He won that," Sabathia said after Rice fat-shamed the Yankees' 37-year-old lefty during the Red Sox postgame show. ...

"I've never met him," Sabathia said of Rice. "I just know this isn't the first time he's made negative comments about me. I know he made negative comments about Jeter. He just is who he is. I just hope when I'm that age I'm not that bitter." ...

Sabathia's wife told him about the comments and was "pissed." ...

"It's not that it's out of bounds, I guess," Sabathia said. "That's just me. It doesn't matter who is bunting or who I'm playing. I get pissed when people bunt, period. You're going to get a reaction out of me. Everybody knows that. And they got the reaction. We could be playing a Little League game. If my son bunts on me, I'm going to cuss him out. That's just me. ... I've always been like that. This is nothing new, and I think a lot of people know that."

What a lying sack of shit. When his teammate Chase Headley bunted for a base hit in the seventh inning on Friday night, NESN's cameras cut to Sabathia in the Yankees dugout. He was nodding his head approvingly and clapping.