Yankees beat Red Sox 6-2 to even ALDS
October 6, 2018 - 5:16 pm
Updated October 6, 2018 - 10:55 pm
BOSTON — Aaron Judge helped chase David Price early by hitting a home run to a part of Fenway Park where balls rarely travel.
Gary Sanchez did him one better.
The Yankees catcher, who tested his manager’s confidence with a sub-.200 batting average and poor defense for most of the season, hit two homers, the second a 479-foot shot clear out of the ballpark that sent New York to a 6-2 victory over the Boston Red Sox on Saturday night and tied the AL Division Series at one game apiece.
“Just a monster night,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “You know he’s capable of that. We all know he’s capable of that. That’s kind of what we’ve been waiting for to some degree, where he can take over a game on offense. He was huge, obviously.”
One night after Chris Sale earned his first career playoff victory, Price failed in his 10th try to win a postseason start and was booed off the field after five outs by a sold-out Fenway Park crowd hoping to see the AL East champions protect the home-field advantage they earned with a franchise-record 108 regular-season wins.
Instead, the wild-card Yankees will have a chance to advance to the AL Championship Series with victories at home, where they are 7-0 over the past two postseasons, in Games 3 and 4 on Monday and Tuesday nights.
Game 5 would be back in Boston on Thursday, if necessary.
Judge’s homer, estimated at 445 feet, landed in the back row of seats above the Green Monster, high above the 379-foot marker and about 10 feet to the left of the pole flying an American flag blowing straight out. It was the longest homer of the postseason — until Sanchez’s second homer, aimed in the same direction, sailed clean out of the park and onto Lansdowne Street.
Astros top Indians for 2-0 ALDS lead
HOUSTON — Marwin Gonzalez hit a go-ahead, two-run double, Alex Bregman homered for the second straight day and the Houston Astros beat the Cleveland Indians 3-1 Saturday to take a 2-0 AL Division Series lead.
Francisco Lindor put Cleveland ahead with a third-inning homer off winner Gerrit Cole, but Gonzalez gave the Astros the lead in the sixth with the third of his four hits, an opposite-field double to right off usually reliable reliever Andrew Miller.
Bregman homered against Trevor Bauer in the seventh, and the World Series champions moved within a win of a second straight trip to the AL Championship Series.
Dallas Keuchel starts for the Astros when the series resumes Monday in Cleveland. Mike Clevinger is scheduled to pitch for the Indians.