LONDON — After providing two large and noisy London Stadium crowds with outstanding hitting performances that sent the Red Sox some very loud messages, the Yankees crossed the dark Atlantic on Sunday night in position to run away with the AL East.
Though manager Aaron Boone downplayed the Yankees’ dominance of the Red Sox pitchers in the two-game sweep, which was capped off by a 12-8 pounding in front of 59,059 Sunday, and the distance his club has put between itself and its blood rivals, Red Sox skipper Alex Cora was blunt when it came to measuring his defending World Series champions and the Yankees.
“Right now, they are a lot better than us,’’ said Cora, whose club is 11 games out of first and looking up at the second-place Rays as well.
In two games, neither pitching staff distinguished itself and each flushed strong leads grabbed in the first innings. Saturday it was the Yankees taking a 6-0 lead in the first and watching the Red Sox quickly tie the score in what ended a 17-13 Yankees victory. Sunday, the Red Sox attacked Stephen Tarpley for four runs in the opening frame with three homers only to watch the lead vanish in a nine-run seventh thanks to their bad bullpen.
Considering the games were played in a ballpark built for soccer and on new artificial turf, the popular question was what made for so many runs.
“I don’t know. What I can tell you is that we are two good teams with good offenses,’’ said Gary Sanchez, who provided a two-run single in the seventh and left the game after catching a ball awkwardly and bothering his left thumb in the eighth. “Things like this are going to happen.’’
It was the Yankees’ 13th win 14 games, raised the record to 54-28 and came with a serving of drama the Yankees could have done without thanks to a putrid performance by reliever Chance Adams.
In two games against the Red Sox the Yankees scored 29 runs and produced 31 hits.
It took until the eighth inning Sunday, but the Yankees homered for the 31st straight game and extended their MLB record. Didi Gregorius led off the frame with a homer to right.
DJ LeMahieu went 3-for-6 and drove in two runs. With a .345 batting average the versatile LeMahieu leads the AL and has 61 RBIs.
“How many is he driving in?’’ Aaron Judge asked. “It is not if he is going to drive them in, it’s how many. It’s been a pleasure to play with him. It is just a professional at-bat.”
As for Adams, he was activated for the second game when Nestor Cortes Jr. was optioned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Having already used Adam Ottavino and Tommy Kahnle, Boone turned to Adams who has traveled the southbound highway from prospect to suspect very quickly.
He was so bad Zack Britton was needed to get the final out of the eighth after the Red Sox scored four runs. For the second straight game Aroldis Chapman, named to the AL All-Star team on Sunday, was summoned to get the final three outs in a non-save situation.
“I didn’t think I would pitch with that many runs,’’ Chapman said of each game.
The nine-run seventh aside, the game turned in the sixth inning when Boone called for Ottavino with the Red Sox leading, 4-2.
“I felt like we had a really good chance there, with our offense, to break through,’’ Boone said of using Ottavino (3-2) trailing by two runs in the middle innings. “It was the right spot for Otto. He came in and did his job and obviously the offense exploded.’’
Boone is correct when he says there is a long way to go in a season barely past the halfway point. But for the Red Sox, it has already been a long season and now they trail by 11 heading into July.
