GAME 78: Vidal Nuno responded to any rumblings about his rotation spot with his best start of year. Behind crisp breaking stuff, great location, and little extra zip on his fastball, Nuno plowed through the Boston Red Sox lineup for 5.2 shutout innings, walking two, and striking out 5. Nuno, who improved to 2-4, gave way to Dellin Betances, Adam Warren and Matt Thornton — who all hit above 95mph on the gun, and over-matched the struggling Red Sox.
Shades of The Bronx Bombers
The Yankees employed the long ball tonight, accounting for 5 of their 6 runs. A two-run blast from Kelly Johnson, then a back-to-back shot from Brett Gardner in the third inning made it 4-0. Brian McCann added a two-run bomb in the eighth inning that landed in the second deck in right-field. Mark Teixeira‘s first inning sac fly to left got the scoring going for New York.
GAMEDAY NOTES: Here’s the box score and Bryan Hoch‘s recap at mlb.com. Don’t miss LoHud‘s pre-game report by Chad Jennings covering manager Joe Girardi‘s response to continued questions on Nuno’s status in the rotation. Also updates on the progress of CC Sabathia and Michael Pineda.
MEMORY LANE: As one might imagine, trades and transactions between mortal enemies in the AL East don’t happen very often, especially between the Yankees and the Red Sox. The last one was in 1997, when the Yanks sent Tony Armas and Jim Mecir to Beantown for catcher Mike Stanley and minor-leaguer Randy Brown. It’s was a quick return to New York for Stanley, who made the 1996 American League All-Star squad as a Yankee, while Brown never made it out of the minors.
Other household names in Yankees-Red Sox trades over the years included:
- Don Baylor traded to the Sox for Mike Easler in 1986.
- Danny Cater and Mario Guerrero traded to Boston for Sparky Lyle in 1972.
- The Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees for $100,00 in December of 1919.
Here’s a link via BaseballReference.com to all transactions from 1902 to present.
NEXT UP: Saturday’s 7:15PM EST game start features the respective aces — Masahiro Tanaka (11-2, 2.11) vs Jon Lester (8-7, 3.14).
