Red Sox use the long ball to beat Yankees

Boston Red Sox’s Travis Shaw watches his sixth inning, two-run home run off New York Yankees starting pitcher Ivan Nova in a baseball game at Yankee Stadium in New York, Monday, September 28, 2015.

Girardi acknowledged that Tanaka’s return to the rubber against the Red Sox “probably” means he will start the wild card game. With the Yankees likely in line to play in next Tuesday’s Wild Card game, it could be the final start of the regular season for the 26-year-old as the club lines up its playoff rotation.

Robbie Ross Jr., in a non-save situation, put two runners on base before closing out the Yankees in the ninth inning. He replaced right-hander Marco Estrada, who allowed just three runs on four hits in 7 1/3 innings.

An inning later, the Sox added to their lead, and again, used a two-run homer as their weapon of choice.

Rookie Deven Marrero, playing third base because Pablo Sandoval has been declared a casualty of pneumonia, hit his first big-league home run in the ninth to stretch the Sox’s lead to 5-1, with a fan undermining the hard-earned Bronx tradition of nothing but contempt for the opposition by actually tossing the ball back onto the field.

The Yankees manufactured a run off Eduardo Rodriguez (10-6) in the first inning when Ellsbury hit a leadoff double, advanced to third on Gardner’s sac bunt and scored on Alex Rodriguez’s sac fly.

After long since being removed from the discussion of winning the American League East title, the Boston Red Sox would like to do their part in preventing the rival New York Yankees from doing the same.

That’s about as good as it got for the Yankees’ offense against Eduardo Rodriguez. This marked Rodriguez’ last start of the season thanks to his 170 IP limit (including Pawtucket), however he ended his rookie year in a remarkable way.

“We all wanted to get to this day”. “I know on one of them Murphy thought he had a double”. Dalton Pompey came on to pinch-run and moved to second on center fielder Kevin Pillar’s single. Tanaka passed his final hurdle, acing his fielding drills Monday afternoon.

Tanaka would have started last Wednesday in Toronto if he did not get hurt, and there was talk he might have returned during the four-game series with the Chicago White Sox. He began the season with a 2.98 ERA in 48 ⅓ innings with Triple-A Pawtucket, then finished it with 121 ⅔ innings and a 3.85 ERA with the Red Sox.

“I feel really good”.