Yanks Go Yard Radio Show Rewind: Red Sox-Yankees Preview (9/28-10/1)
By Ricky Keeler
On last night’€™s episode of the Yanks Go Yard Radio Show, I started off the episode by talking about the New York Yankees (86-69) taking three out of four games from the Chicago White Sox over the weekend. While New York did win the series, the Bronx Bombers’ offense continues to struggle with runners in scoring position. For example, on Friday night, they hit into four double plays in a loss. Then, in a 6-1 win yesterday, they left 15 runners on base.
Despite the Yankees having these issues, they did get big hits from Carlos Beltran, including a three-run homer on Thursday and they seem to have a solid platoon at second base with Dustin Ackley and Rob Refsnyder. Even though New York is four games behind Toronto with seven games to play, their magic number to clinch a playoff spot is two games.
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Tonight, the Yankees will begin their final home series of the regular season and they will go for the franchise’s 10,000th win against the Boston Red Sox (75-80). The Red Sox were in the news over the weekend when they announced that Mike Hazen will be the team’s new general manager and Frank Wren will be the senior vice president. Both men are going to report to president Dave Dombrowski.
While the Red Sox will miss the playoffs, they are one of the teams you don’€™t want to play right now. Since August 1, the Red Sox are 29-22 and Torey Lovullo‘s team has been one of the offenses in baseball. Since the All-Star Break, the Red Sox have the highest team batting average (.280) and they have scored the third most runs, behind only the Mets and the Blue Jays.
Over his last 62 games, designated hitter David Ortiz, who recently hit his 500th career home run, is hitting .317 with 21 home runs and 61 RBI’€™s. In addition to Ortiz, the Red Sox have gotten success from some of their younger players such as shortstop Xander Bogaerts (hitting .347 with 37 RBI’s in his last 64 games) and center fielder Mookie Betts (.313 with 29 RBI’s in his last 52 games).
Boston’s starting rotation has been an issue for them all seasons, but they have one of the hottest pitchers in the game right now. Rich Hill, who was signed as a free agent in August, has 30 strikeouts and has given up just three runs in his last 23 innings pitched. Hill is scheduled to face the Yankees on Thursday.
To talk more about the Red Sox, I spoke with DJ Smith, who is the host of the Chowder and Champions Podcast. DJ gave his take on what the Red Sox’ biggest need this winter, was he surprised about the hiring of Mike Hazen and the team staying internal with their GM search, and should Lovullo be a serious candidate to stay as manager, if the team decides to part ways with John Farrell, who is batting lymphoma.
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