NEW YORK – The last time Walker Buehler stood on the Yankee Stadium mound, he was a Los Angeles Dodger pitching a 1-2-3 ninth inning to win the World Series.
A mere 219 days later, the Yankees got to exact their revenge, pummeling Buehler and his new team, the Red Sox, 9-6 in their first meeting of the season.
Hours after manager Alex Cora said he hoped to get six innings from his starters this weekend, Buehler lasted just two innings. He needed 67 strikes (42 for strikes strikes) to get through them, and the Yankees had a 7-0 lead by the end of his outing.
He yielded seven runs, five earned, on seven hits, walked two, struck out two, gave up two home runs, and hit a batter. (A throwing error by Marcelo Mayer led to the two unearned runs in the second.)
The Bronx batters pounced on Buehler as if they’d lain in wait for him since the previous October. He issued a leadoff walk to Trent Grisham and gave up a three-run homer to Jazz Chisholm Jr. and two-run homer to Anthony Volpe before finally bringing the first inning to a close.
“It was actually a ball, but I mean, a pitch that he could handle and he put a good swing on it,” Cora said of Chisholm’s game-changing blast.
First-inning damage has emerged as a critical issue for this Red Sox team. They entered Friday leading the American League in first-inning runs, behind only the Dodgers and Colorado Rockies. In general, the Red Sox have allowed opponents to score first 38 times, and they are 12-26 when they do.
“We prepare, we have to execute,” Cora said of the first-inning free-for-alls.
The bottom of the second presented a different, but equally recursive Red Sox problem. Buehler had one on – Aaron Judge, who singled and stole second – and two outs when a throwing error by Mayer allowed Paul Goldschmidt to reach base and the inning to continue. Chisholm followed with an RBI single and stolen base, after which Buehler walked Jasson Domínguez to load the bases and plunked Volpe to force in run No. 7.
“He was frustrated,” Cora said of Buehler’s body language during the second inning. “He feels great physically, he feels his stuff is really good, and then that happened, you know? So it’s not easy to be out there and get your (expletive) kicked, right? I think we’re all frustrated, you know, and he’s trying to find a way.”
Buehler didn’t mince words in his self-assessment.
“To be honest with you, this organization put a lot of faith in me this offseason and I’ve been (expletive) embarrassing for us,” the righty said as he stood by his locker in a bleakly quiet visitors clubhouse. “It’s tough. It’s obviously a big game and a big rivalry that I was excited to be a part of, and for it to go the way that it did is super disappointing, especially after the past two, three weeks of kind of prep and throwing and all that kind of (expletive) and how I’m feeling. Physically, I feel great, and for it to happen that way, just it sucks.”
“I thought I made a lot of really good pitches,” Buehler continued. “I made some really (expletive) ones and some in-betweens, and they took advantage of kind of all of them.”
Buehler explained that despite allowing a combined 10 earned runs over his last two starts, he feels like he’s working his way to being the pitcher he wants to be.
“I think we’ve really improved a couple of the breaking balls,” he explained. “The slider that I’m throwing is completely new and something that I think is going to creep into being one of my better throws, and the changeup was really good today, so you know, I feel like I’ve said this for two years straight now, but like, you know, I feel like I’m getting closer, as weird as that sounds.”
“But,” Buehler added, “for me to have kind of the four or five-start stretch that I had right before I went on the (injured list) of being, you know, largely successful and then to have these couple in a row is (expletive) super disappointing.”
Thus, for the second game in a row, the Red Sox were forced to dip into their bullpen almost immediately; before Thursday’s off-day, Lucas Giolito had lasted just 1.2 innings at Fenway. Zack Kelly stemmed the bleeding with a pair of scoreless innings, allowing one hit and striking out four.
“It’s hard to play this way,” Cora said. “Obviously, the bullpen is taxed.”
Though he ultimately yielded four earned runs on three hits, the majority of Will Warren’s start served as a brutal foil for the Red Sox rotation issues. The Yankees righty breezed through his first five innings, holding Boston to two hits.
If the Yankees fans in attendance enjoyed their initial introduction to Mayer when he made a crucial error in the second, they turned on him in the fifth when he led off with the biggest hit of his burgeoning career. As his first-ever home run soared 410 feet to right-center, the home crowd booed him venomously.
Mayer’s first round-tripper was only Boston’s second hit of the night, joining Abraham Toro’s second-inning one-out single, but it opened the door for Boston to attempt a comeback.
“Shoot, we made a game out of it, right?” Cora said. “They had to bring in (Fernando) Cruz and their closer in a game that we were down by a lot, right, so it’s not like it was a lost cause, you know. He got us going, put a good swing.”
The Yankees took the run back almost immediately on yet another Boston miscue. With two on and two outs in the bottom of the six, Judge shot a single past a diving Mayer and into left. Jarren Duran made an error on his throw home as Austin Wells crossed the plate as New York’s eighth run.
Like Mayer, Duran repented for his miscue with a big knock. The Red Sox leadoff man opened the sixth with a first-pitch triple, fittingly hit to Judge’s territory in right, and scored Boston’s second run on Wilyer Abreu’s sacrifice fly.
Duran’s knock was the beginning of the end for Warren, who finally faltered and exited with one out in the sixth. He exited after loading the bases on a trio of walks to MLB walks leader Rafael Devers, Carlos Narváez, and Toro. It was Devers’ 51st free pass of the season; he’s walked more in 65 games this year than he did in the entirety of his ‘18, ‘19, and ‘22 campaigns, all seasons in which he played between 121 and 156 games.
With lefty Brent Headrick replacing Warren, Cora turned to Romy Gonzalez and Rob Refsnyder, two of the best pinch-hitters on the roster, to bat in place of Mayer and David Hamilton. Gonzalez quickly plated two runs with a single, but Trevor Story and Refsnyder followed with a pair of foul-tip strikeouts to leave two men in scoring position.
Again, the Yankees answered back. Paul Goldschmidt greeted Cooper Criswell with a leadoff home run in the bottom of the sixth. 9-4. Criswell was otherwise in control; he pitched the last three innings and didn’t incur any further damage.
“What Coop did today, after pitching two days ago, you know, it’s hard to do,” Cora said appreciatively. Asked if the Red Sox planned on making any roster moves to get an infusion of fresh arms, the Sox skipper said they were going to talk about it.
In the seventh, Devers made things interesting with one of his patented Yankee-killer bombs, a 419-footer which scored Duran and cut New York’s lead to three. He’s now hit 17 career home runs in 62 games at Yankee Stadium.
Yet in the entirety of the contest, the Yankees tallied 14 hits, the Red Sox only six. Boston made two errors, New York zero. Both teams struck out in the double digits.
Cora emphasized that while it wasn’t a “moral victory,” their late-inning rally bid could have implications for the rest of the series.
“It’s not good enough,” he reiterated. “But they went to Cruz and (Devin) Williams, and at least, you know, they used their bullpen in a game that, it was 8-1 or whatever it is. So we take that, and tomorrow hopefully we put pressure early on and they don’t put pressure on us with Garrett (Crochet) and we can get through the bullpen.”
The Red Sox are 30-35. The Yankees are 39-23. They meet again on Saturday at 7:35 p.m.
Originally Published:
