The Yankees play a perfect game, rewarded with marathon win

The Yankees prevailed, and that’s the only suitable word, over the Red Sox last night in sixteen highly contested innings, evening the four-game set at one apiece and setting the stage for an exhausting day-night double dip on Sunday.

The Yankees sent 65 batters to the plate last night. The saw 267 pitches thrown by Red Sox pitchers and struck out nineteen times, 13 of which came from the hand of Chris Sale. They played errorless ball for almost six hours using eight pitchers, including nine perfect innings from their bullpen. And this time, they were rewarded with a win.

Call it what you want. A must-have win, a bounce-back win, a turning point, or just another typical game between the Yankees and Red Sox that’ll be among the trove of games played back by YES over the winter.

It was a game split almost in half with both starting pitchers on their game and giving up almost nothing. Chris Sale came as advertised and showing why he’s a lock on this year’s Cy Young, tossing seven scoreless innings before turning the game over to his bullpen with a slim one-run lead.

Luis Severino pitched the kind of game the Yankees will expect when he’s the ace of their staff next season, allowing only one run on four hits over seven innings, leaving Joe Girardi no choice but to lift him after 114 pitches to start the eighth inning.

And if a large contingent of Yankees fans were squirming in their seats at that point, it would have been understandable given the way the bullpen has been responding when called on in tight situations.

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But this was one of those nights when everything was clicking, and not only in the bullpen. Matt Holliday, struggling mightily since his return to the lineup on Friday, launched a game tying home run in the top of the ninth off Craig Kimbrel, giving the Boston closer a taste of the medicine dosed out to Aroldis Chapman the night before.

The Yankees piled on three runs in the top of the 16th inning with unlikely heroes Jacoby Ellsbury, Chase Headley, Austin Romine, and Didi Gregorius in the middle of things. Indeed, this was a sweet win for a team that had been beaten down and spit out 24 hours earlier.

Today, both teams will take their weary bodies to Fenway Park again for one of those horrible day-night doubleheaders induced by a rainout in April. The Yankees will be facing a 16-20 hour workday, beginning at around 11 AM when they arrive at the ballpark and not ending until their plane lands in Minneapolis in the wee hours of the morning to face the Twins Monday night.

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Bryan Mitchell and Masahiro Tanaka will be called on to give the Yankees length, with Mitchell feeling the most weight in his afternoon start that would give the pen a few more precious hours of rest before the night contest.

If there’s a fresh arm or two at Scranton, it would not be surprising to see the Yankees make a couple of roster moves before or even between games.