All you need to know, in quickie form, about the Red Sox' loss to the Yankees, complete with BSJ analysis and insight:
HEADLINES
Eovaldi tagged early: The first three hitters of the game reached against starter Nathan Eovaldi....and it was quickly apparent this wasn't going to be his night. The third, Aaron Judge, doubled off the wall and it was 2-0 Yankees before some fans had taken their seats. There were some troubling signs in that first inning, too, scoreboard aside: The Yankees took more than dozen swings in the first inning and didn't miss with any of them. When Eovaldi returned in the second and retired the Yanks 1-2-3 on just seven pitches, there was some hope for the Red Sox that he had made some important adjustments. But that didn't last long, and in the third, neither did Eovaldi, as the Yankees resumed teeing off against him. The first four hitters all reached against him, including a three-run homer into the bullpen from Giancarlo Stanton, stretching the New York lead to 7-0. Many of the hits he allowed in his brief outing came with two strikes, as he repeatedly failed to put hitters away. The shortened outing -- 2.2 innings -- represented his briefest of the season.
Sox offense voided: Over their previous seven games -- all victories -- the Red Sox scored at least six runs in each, and often easily surpassed that total. But Friday night, they didn't even manage their first hit until two outs in the fourth when J.D. Martinez shot a line drive to right which bounced on the warning track and hopped into the seats for a ground-rule double. The Sox' first runs, meanwhile, didn't come until the sixth when Rafael Devers flipped his bat and lofted a ball that landed in the right field box seats. By then, though, the Yankees were comfortably ahead and the game had long since been decided. The Sox piled up some hits in the later innings off the New York bullpen, but they didn't amount to anything, And if they had a plan against Yankee starter Gerrit Cole, it wasn't obvious, or it wasn't followed very carefully. You have to go back to Sept. 10 to find the last time the Sox were limited to as few as three runs in a game.
TURNING POINT
The Red Sox seized a little momentum in the sixth with a three-run homer from Devers, though some of that ebbed when the Yankees countered with a run of their own in the top of the seventh. Then, in the bottom of the inning, the Sox stirred again. After two were already out, back-to-back singles from Jose Iglesias and Kike Hernandez gave the Sox two baserunners. When the Yankees called on lefty Wandy Peralta for Kyle Schwarber, Alex Cora countered with pinch-hitter Bobby Dalbec. Fenway was again energized, with the possibility that if Dalbec got ahold of one, the Sox would be back to within a couple of runs. Instead, Peralta got him to chase a breaking pitch down and away, ending the threat.
ONE UP
Kike Hernandez: Hernandez did his best to get things going at the top of the lineup, reaching base in each of his four plate appearances with two walks, two singles and a run scored,
TWO DOWN
Xander Bogaerts: The shortstop was 0-for-4, including hitting into an inning-ending double play in the first and striking out with two on and no out in the sixth.
Alex Verdugo: It was an unproductive night at the plate for the outfielder, who fanned and was retired on two groundouts.
QUOTE OF NOTE
"It's frustrating. We knew how important this game was tonight. We knew where we stand in the hunt for the playoff. I've got to be able to set the tone, especially the first game in the series, and I didn't do that.'' - Nathan Eovaldi
STATISTICALLY SPEAKING
* The start was the 200th of Nate Eovaldi's career.
* The homer by Rafael Devers meant the Sox have homered in 27 of their last 29 games.
* Devers has homered three times vs. Gerrit Cole this season.
* Jose Iglesias extended his hitting streak to 10 straight games, the fifth time in his career he's had a streak at least that long.
UP NEXT
The Red Sox and Yankees continue their series at 4:10 Saturday afternoon, with RHP Nick Pivetta (9-7, 4.63) vs. RHP Nestor Cortes (2-2, 2.79)