Posted on 09/14/2007 9:30:36 PM PDT by John Cena
BOSTON (AP) -- In a game that mirrored the season, the New York Yankees bounced back.
Alex Rodriguez capped a six-run eighth inning with a tiebreaking single off Jonathan Papelbon, and the Yankees overcame a five-run deficit to beat the Boston Red Sox 8-7 Friday night.
Jason Giambi and Robinson Cano started the comeback with home runs off Hideki Okajima, Derek Jeter hit an RBI single against Papelbon and Bobby Abreu tied it with a two-run double.
"Every win now is a big win," Jeter said.
By winning a 4-hour, 43-minute marathon -- two minutes shy of the record for a nine-inning game set by the Yankees and Red Sox on Aug. 18 last year -- New York closed within 4 1/2 games of AL East-leading Boston. The Yankees remained 3 1/2 games ahead of Detroit in the wild-card race.
Boston has led the division for the last 150 days. By winning the opener of a three-game series, the Yankees cut the gap to its smallest size since after games of Aug. 19 and kept alive their slim chances for overtaking their longtime rival.
Johnny Damon went 4-for-6 against his former team -- his four-hit game since June 17 last year. Brian Bruney (3-1) pitched 1 1/3 innings in relief of Andy Pettitte for the win, and Mariano Rivera pitched a one-hit ninth for his 27th save in 30 chances.
Papelbon (1-3) blew a save for the third time in 38 opportunities.
Okajima entered with a 7-2 lead and a 1.76 ERA but allowed Giambi's 14th homer and Cano's 17th. Melky Cabrera walked, Damon doubled him to third, Papelbon relieved.
Papelbon, who hadn't allowed a run in 16 2/3 innings, gave up an RBI single to Jeter on his first pitch, threw a called streak to Abreu, then gave up Abreu's double. That hit was the first by a lefty off Papelbon in 35 at bats.
Rodriguez, who was 0-for-4 and struck out in his previous two at bats, then ripped an 0-1 pitch to center field.
"It came apart in a hurry," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said.
Boston had struck first in the second inning on Jacoby Ellsbury's second-inning single and made it 2-0 when J.D. Drew's grounder went threw first baseman Giambi's legs for a run-scoring error in the third.
Hideki Matsui's RBI triple cut it to 2-1 in the fourth, but Boston scored three runs in the bottom half on Dustin Pedroia's two-run single and Mike Lowell's RBI single.
Damon singled in a run in the sixth, but the Red Sox scored twice in the bottom half on RBI singles by Kevin Youkilis and Drew.
Great win. Go Yanks!
tease all you want but yankees arent getting the division. go sox
Yankees v.s. Red Sox games are almost always interesting. One of the best rivalries in all of sports, and not just in all of Major League Baseball.
But then it became like that old (I think) Peggy Lee tune with the refrain "Is that all there is to a fire?"
Maybe I'm like the Hebrews when they left the bondage of Egypt and went into the wilderness and started griping and wanting to go back, but I miss the old, tragic Red Sox.
Maybe they're coming back. Oh... forgive my rambling, I need to think about something else.
I predicted Bosox fans - older ones intimately familiar with their history, at least - would experience that very sentiment not long after the WS victory in '04. Every last one dismissed my prediction as outrageous and asserted that their "long suffered had ended for good." Naive.
I'm sure most Cubs fans feel similarly. ....and with a bit of (bigtime) luck could very well find out for themselves this season.
Good effort Yanks, only lost by 9 runs today.
Yeah I know. Well, you win some games and you lose some games.
You win some World Series -— 26 for the Yanks vs 6 for the Blow Sox -— and then you don’t win a World Series for 86 years! LOL
Go Yanks!
Looks like we’re looking at the wild card now. Oh well, plenty of WC teams have gone on to win the WS in recent years. ...the Bosox among them, of course. Maybe the Yanks will get some revenge this year — knock off the Angels in the ALDS and the Boston in the ALCS. ...and perhaps Arizona in the WS (avenging ‘01).
Great effort by the Yanks today...JETER 3-Run BLAST!...OUCH!
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