Joe Kelly had been traded to the Sox a month ago and he was still looking for his first win in a Sox uniform. Some of it was due to poor pitching and some of it was due to just dumb luck. Kelly would take the mound against the Yankees and finally be able to put a Sox win in his record books mainly due to the offensive strength of the Sox youngins Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts at the plate. The Sox would end up hitting 3 homeruns and knock Yankees starter Shane Greene out of the game in the 3rd inning.
The Sox got on the scoreboard early, scoring 2 runs off Greene in the 1st inning. Cespedes hit an RBI double to score Betts and then Napoli hit an RBI sac fly to score Ortiz. Sox 2-0. In the 3rd inning the Sox broke this game open when they scored 4 more times by way of the homerun. Daniel Nava hit a 3 run homerun and then the final run of the inning was a solo homerun from Xander Bogaerts. Sox 6-0. The Yankees got their first run off of Kelly in the bottom of the inning when Prado hit a leadoff homerun, however the Sox got that run right back in the 4th when Mookie Betts hit a solo homerun of his own. Sox 7-1.
Kelly struggled the most in the bottom of the 5th when the Yankees were able to grab a couple of runs. Kelly had the bases loaded with one out and then walked in a run. The Yankees scored the final run of the inning after a review. Jeter hit a ball into the infield and was initially called out, but after review he was correctly found to be safe and a run scored on the play. Sox 7-3. Kelly remained on the mound into the 7th inning. Kelly allowed the first two to reach, but then got out of by way of a double play. Kelly was done for the night and Tommy Layne was in to end the inning. Layne got the final out of the 7th and also pitched a scoreless 8th. The Sox added on 2 in the bottom of the 8th when Napoli hit an RBI sac fly and then Bogaerts finished off his strong night when an RBI single to score Nava. Sox 9-3. Koji Uehara took the mound in the 9th since he hadn’t pitched in a while. Uehara continued his trend of giving up a solo homerun, but that is all the Yankees could muster against him and the Sox took the first game of the series.
Red Sox 9 Yankees 4 BOXSCORE
WP: Kelly (1-1) LP: Greene (4-2)
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