G12: Red Sox 6, Yankees 3

Yankees - 000 000 003 - 3  4  1
Red Sox - 042 000 00x - 6  8  2

Rick Porcello (7-2-0-0-6, 99) retired the first 11 Yankees and took a no-hitter through a 45-minute rain delay and into the seventh inning.

The Yankees made things somewhat interesting by scoring three times against Marcus Walden with no outs in the ninth, before Craig Kimbrel got a grounder to first and two strikeouts to burst the Bombers' bubble.

The bottom four batters in the Boston order scored all six runs against Sonny Gray (3-7-6-2-3, 68), with Eduardo Nunez and Jackie Bradley scoring two each. Bradley also drove in his first run of the season, in his 40th plate appearance.

Hanley Ramirez was drilled on the left wrist in the first inning by Gray's first pitch to him, a 94-mph fastball. Ramirez was in considerable pain and left the game. X-rays were negative.

The Red Sox batted around in the second inning. Nunez reached on an infield hit, a chopper over the mound that shortstop Didi Gregorius could not handle. Bradley walked. Sandy Leon grounded a single into right and Boston led 1-0. Brock Holt walked, loading the bases. Mookie Betts jumped on Gray's first pitch and flied out to deep center. All three runners tagged and advanced, with JBJ crossing the plate.

Andrew Benintendi grounded to second baseman Tyler Wade, who threw home. Catcher Gary Sanchez could not handle the one-hop throw. The ball skipped past him and Leon scored. The official scorer charged Wade with an error, but punishing the infielder because Sanchez has stone hands seems unfair. (The throw was on target.) Mitch Moreland, who had replaced Ramirez, singled to left for another run before Gray got the final two outs.

Nunez doubled off the Wall to start the third. Bradley popped an 0-2 pitch down the left field line. Giancarlo Stanton, thinking the ball was going foul into the crowd, ran over to the side wall to watch. However, the ball actually fell unmolested into fair territory several feet behind him! And when Stanton turned towards the ball, it bounced high and out of his reach, into the stands for a ground-rule double. Nunez scored. (Bradley had batted with 22 runners on base prior to that AB (11 on first, 8 on second, 3 on third), without driving any of them in.)

Stanton looked like a rank amateur on that play, and a couple of his teammates tried to make him feel not so alone. Leon struck out, but the ball slipped past Sanchez. And, again, someone else was blamed, as it was called a wild pitch. After Holt struck out looking, Betts grounded to third. Ronald Torreyes made a bad throw to second, high and wide, and Wade was unable to attempt an inning-ending double play. Instead, Bradley scored Boston's 6th run.

Porcello's night started off with a frustrating seven-pitch at-bat in which Brett Gardner grounded out to first. The frustrating part was home plate umpire Chris Guccione, who blew two obvious strikes - #3 and #5 below - both of which should have struck out Gardner.

Blowing two calls like that in one at-bat? That's the unmistakable sign of a horseshit umpire.

Porcello retired 11 batters before grazing Stanton on his elbow pad with a pitch in the fourth. The rule book states that if the batter makes no effort to avoid a pitch that hits him, the umpire MUST call the pitch a ball and NOT award the batter first base. Guccione - being incompetent and unworthy of holding his current job - ignored the clear dictates of the rule book, and sent Stanton to first base.

(Umpires should not be allowed to pick and choose which rules they are going to enforce and which rules they will not. Presumably, a first base umpire could not get away with deciding on his own that all throws to first on ground balls must beat the runner by two steps to be ruled an out. Similarly, plate umpires should not be allowed to ignore or alter existing rules.)

That was New York's only baserunner until the seventh. Both teams sat through a 45-minute rain delay at the end of the fifth. (It had been raining steadily since the second inning.) Aaron Judge broke up the no-hit bid with a double to deep center leading off the seventh. Stanton followed with an infield single to third. Porcello couldn't have cared less. He got Didi Gregorius on a fly to right and struck out Gary Sanchez and Aaron Hicks.

Marcus Walden got through the eighth, but he walked Judge to start the ninth. Stanton hit a hard grounder to Devers at third. Devers bobbled it and then made a dumb decision to throw the ball to first, and was charged with two errors, one fielding and one throwing. Stanton stole second before Gregorius walked. Sanchez drove home all three runners with a first-pitch double into the triangle. At 6-3, it was now a "save situation", so Kimbrel came in and slammed the door in the MFY's faces.

The Red Sox improved to 10-2, while the Yankees dropped to 6-7.

Sonny Gray / Rick Porcello

Betts, RF
Benintendi, LF
Ramirez, 1B
Martinez, DH
Devers, 3B
Nunez, 2B
Bradley, CF
Leon, C
Holt, SS

Christian Vazquez - who failed in his only job during the early moments of what became the brawl last night, which was to get in front of Austin once he slammed his bat and starting making big-boy noises after getting properly drilled and prevent him from going after Kelly - fully expects the MFY to retaliate and keep this feud going:

You know that's coming. They feel like us. ... [I]t will be something soon. If not this series, maybe in New York [May 8-10].