NEW YORK (AP) — Joe Kelly pitched one-hit ball for seven innings and the Boston Red Sox ran over the Yankees 8-4 Saturday, hours after winning their own New York City marathon.
Bleary-eyed, the teams started at 1:08 p.m. following Friday night’s game that took 19 innings and finished at 2:13 a.m. Brock Holt, the only position player on either side who didn’t get into that 6-5 Boston victory, had four hits and drove in three runs.
The Red Sox won this time in 3 hours, 13 minutes — quite a speed-up from playing for 6 hours, 49 minutes, and that doesn’t include a 16-minute power outage. Mark Teixeira and Hanley Ramirez were among several regulars out of the lineups after playing all 19 innings.
Kelly (1-0) came off the 15-day disabled list and saved Boston’s bullpen. He retired his final 17 batters, starting with a bases-loaded sacrifice fly by Didi Gregorius in the second and leaving with an 8-1 lead.
Kelly had been sidelined by a strain in his right biceps. He struck out eight and gave up a solid single to Alex Rodriguez in the second.
Adam Warren (0-1) gave up one earned run in 5 1-3 innings. Chris Young homered off reliever Alexi Ogando in the eighth.
Rodriguez played first base for the first time in the majors, and his error helped Boston take a 1-0 lead in the second. He let a low throw from the hole by Gregorius bounce off the heel of his glove, allowing Mike Napoli to reach.
Rodriguez later came off the bag to catch a throw — the runner was originally called out, then safe after a replay review.
Holt, who had batted just once this season, hit three singles and then added a three-run double in the eighth that glanced off right fielder Garrett Jones’ glove.
Red Sox manager John Farrell said he got three hours’ sleep and was back in the clubhouse by 8:30 a.m. Boston’s team bus to the ballpark was pushed back, and players on both sides trickled into the locker rooms an hour or two later than usual.
The teams needed nearly 30 dozen baseballs and 628 pitches for their previous meeting. It was the longest game ever, by time, for the Red Sox and for the Yankees at home.
By the time it ended, the scoreboard showed empty slots in case the game went 27 innings. The major league record is 26 by Brooklyn and the Boston Braves in 1920, when both pitchers threw complete games and they finished in a tidy 3 hours, 50 minutes.
For umpire crew chief Mike Winters, the game brought back memories from another long day in town.
“I ran the New York City Marathon in 2007 with my wife,” he said. “And I finished 26 miles in less time than it took to play that game — by an hour,” he said.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Red Sox: Closer Koji Uehara (strained left hamstring) was scheduled to pitch for Class A Greenville on Saturday night.
Yankees: C Brian McCann didn’t play. He was knocked down by a nasty foul off the top of his right knee cap in the ninth Friday, and stayed in for nine more innings.
UP NEXT
Masahiro Tanaka starts for the Yankees vs. Clay Buchholz on Sunday night to wrap up the three-game series. Tanaka lasted just four innings in an opening day loss, and another poor start would surely fuel speculation that his damaged right elbow is a problem.
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