After an embarrassing four game sweep at the hands of the Mets, the Yankees welcomed in the division leading Red Sox to the stadium in the hopes of turning around their recent fortunes. To help matters, the Yankees saw Mark Teixeira and Kevin Youkilis return to a lineup that badly needed a boost.
The two players however combined to add little punch as the Yankees still lost two out of three to the Sox, scoring just five runs over the weekend. The Yankees now sit three full games behind the Sox for first place in the AL East.
The weekend got off to a strong start as CC Sabathia pitched like the ace he is in striking out 10 batters over seven innings and allowing just one run. CC was gunning it up to 94 mph and was keeping hitters off balance with an array of changeups and sliders.
On the offensive end the Yankees were able to get enough clutch hitting with RBI singles from Youkilis, Brett Gardner, Ichiro Suzuki, and Jayson Nix. Mariano Rivera bounced back from a bad outing against the Mets to get his 19th save of the year.
On Saturday the Yankees failed to compete with Boston as starter Phil Hughes was lit up for five runs in the third inning. The big blow was an opposite field grand slam given up to Mike Napoli. The long ball has continued to hurt Hughes, who would only get through four and a third innings on his way to picking up his fourth loss of the year. The Yankees would eventually fall 11-1.
The Sunday rubber match featured a great pitching matchup between Clay Buchholz and Hiroki Kuroda. The Yankees managed just two hits off of Buchholz as the starter shut the Yankees down for five innings. Massive thunderstorms started in the sixth and there was never another window to finish the game as the Yankees fell 3-0 in a rain shortened six inning game. David Ortiz and Jose Iglesias hit solo home runs for the Sox.