The Red Sox played their last game of 2014 this afternoon before closing the book on a disappointing season. Before the game started the Sox had a ceremony honoring Derek Jeter and then gave him the gift of having Clay Buchholz not only give up a hit to Jeter, but an RBI hit. The Sox went down early to the Yankees and were playing behind the whole game. The Sox went from worst to first back to worst, so let’s hope that means good things for next year.
Clay Buchholz was on the mound for the Sox against Michael Pineda for the Yankees. Pineda has not been back on the mound at Fenway since he was ejected for outwardly using pine tar during the game. Pineda would have no such snafus today and would pitch himself a nice outing to end the year. Buchholz started well, but things would fall apart for him in the 3rd inning. Buchholz gave up his first runs when he gave up a 2 run RBI triple to Ichiro Suzuki. Next Derek Jeter came to the plate and Buchholz gave all those Yankees fans at Fenway what they wanted when Jeter hit a bloop infield bouncer to Cecchini and got an RBI single. Jeter immediately came out of the game to a standing ovation from the crowd at Fenway. In a nice moment, Jeter came over and said something to Buchholz before leaving the game to congratulations all around. The Yankees scored their 4th run of the inning when Teixeira hit an RBI sac fly to score McCann from 3rd. Sox 0-4.
Buchholz pitched 6 innings and then handed the game over to the bullpen. Craig Breslow took the mound in the 7th and continued his trend in 2014 of struggling more often than not. Breslow would end up allowing 5 runs to score in the inning and have the Yankees up 9-0. Breslow gave up a 2 run RBI double to Pirela, an RBI single to Murphy, an RBI double to Romine and an RBI single to Headley. Breslow seems to want to make sure that in no way is he in a Sox uniform come 2015 with his performance down the stretch this year. The Sox finally got on the board in the bottom of the inning and in a big way. Dan Butler hit a 2 run RBI double and then a 3rd run came in to score by way of a throwing error from right fielder Perez. Sox 3-9. The Sox then scored two more runs when Mookie Betts hit an RBI double. Sox 5-9. Ironically if Breslow hadn’t been in the game and given up 5 runs, the Sox would have been leading the game after that inning. Burke Badenhop came out and pitched a scoreless 8th inning and then Alex Wilson pitched a scoreless 9th, but the Sox wouldn’t be able to get any more runs on the board and lost the last game of the season. Now the Sox and the Yankees get to go home and start the slow process of trying to rebuild their way back up to the power houses of the AL East.
Red Sox 5 Yankees 9 BOXSCORE
WP: Pineda (5-5) LP: Buchholz (8-11)
Bring on 2015!!!!
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