The Saturday, August 3, 2019

* The Boston Globe

For and Red Sox, answers are hard to come by

Tara Sullivan

Maybe Alex Cora should have had that meeting.

Maybe he should have cleared a buffet table, knocked over a garbage can, or scattered a few chairs. Something, anything, to wake his Red Sox out of their slumber.

Because staying the course isn’t cutting it.

Another night, another loss, this time to the Yankees, 4-2, in the Bronx, another reminder that last week’s brief flash of winning was more shooting star than fireworks display, a fading burst from a team that cannot seem to recapture last season’s championship form. That’s five losses in a row now for the Sox, the longest losing streak since 2015. Five losses in a row, or two more than the worst streak this team had at any point of a charmed 2018 campaign.

What can Cora do?

Well, in the wake of this week’s dispiriting home sweep at the hands of Tampa Bay, the manager said he planned to hold a team meeting (a rarity in his tenure) before getting this Yankee series underway, indicating it would be something more formal than the daily messages he includes in the normal course of game-planning meetings. The idea made sense, given how the team had fallen flat after their two straight series wins against those same Rays and Yankees, and particularly how the locker room risked being deflated by the do-nothing trade deadline actions of general manager Dave Dombrowski.

But as Cora prepped his team Friday night, the second-year skipper said there was no meeting, and even more, that the whole idea had been blown out of proportion. No meeting, no changes. No real reason why, either.

“I said it two days ago, we might address what’s going on, after the trading deadline. Somebody asked me about the mood in the clubhouse, if they were down because we didn’t add somebody, and I said, ‘We might address it, we might not, I might talk to the guys about where we’re at,’ ” Cora said. “They know where we’re at. Then somebody asked me yesterday about the meeting and I said, ‘I might do it tomorrow, I might not.’

“I do it on a daily basis. It’s just not a closed-door meeting, it’s not like, ‘Let’s close doors and let me go at it.’ . . . The way I said it was kind of out of proportion. First of all, if I’m going to have a team meeting, you guys are going to be the last people who will know about it. Second, we communicate with players on a daily basis.”

Maybe the meeting that almost was wouldn’t have made a difference — not when starter Eduardo Rodriguez was handed a first-inning 2-0 lead thanks to J.D. Martinez’s two-run homer and handed it right back in the bottom of the inning with one bases-loaded mistake to Gleyber Torres. Not when the Red Sox’ offense went silent the rest of the night with a measly two hits over the final eight innings.

That Rodriguez made it through 6⅔ innings was actually a credit to his perseverance, given he’d eclipsed 50 pitches to get six outs. But much like this team this season, it was almost good enough, but ultimately fell short.

There was almost a meeting.

“We didn’t play well against Tampa, we didn’t play well [last] Sunday against the Yankees. Today was a good baseball game. After the first inning, I thought it might be 13-2,” Cora said. “Honestly, I’m not frustrated by today. It was more frustrating the way we played against Tampa. This was a good baseball game. It happens.”

Indeed it does. But the more the days flip by on the calendar, the less room there is to be satisfied with a good effort. The Red Sox need wins, and while the responsibility for better execution lies primarily with the players, the manager can do plenty to set a new tune, or chart a new course.

In Cora’s case, every button he pushed last season worked, in part because none of them were flashing red, saying “panic.” His team flew out of the starting gate and never looked back. This season is demanding something different, and while there is absolutely no sense he has lost his team or anything that dire, he hasn’t been able to find the magic of his debut managerial season.

And he knows it.

“I’m learning. It’s a learning experience,” Cora said after being asked about the difference between fighting for playoff position rather than fending off those fighting behind you. “My only managing experience was 108 wins or whatever it was and magic carpet all the way to the . We’re about to find out. Like I told somebody yesterday, and we’ve been talking about it since last year, short-term goals. Try to win series. If you win every series this month, somebody can do the math for me, I think it’s 20 wins. We don’t have to sweep either. We can do that, but we have to play better. It starts here. This is where it starts.”

First-inning slam too much for Red Sox offense in fifth straight loss

Peter Abraham

Red Sox manager Alex Cora said Thursday that he planned to have a meeting with his struggling team before the start of a pivotal four-game series against the Yankees on Friday night.

“I think it’s important,” he said.

But no meeting was held when the team arrived at Yankee Stadium. Cora said his words were somehow misinterpreted and that the team meets in some form before every game regardless of the situation.

Cora was asked before the game if he had changed his mind about the meeting or had made a joke others missed.

“All of the above,” he said before laughing.

Cora was much more subdued after a 4-2 loss before a sellout crowd of 46,932.

That’s now five consecutive losses for the Sox, their longest skid since dropping eight in a row from July 12-23, 2015. They now trail the Yankees by 11½ games, the largest deficit of the season.

The Sox haven’t been this far out of first place since they finished the 2015 season 15 games behind the .

Hoping for a wild card? The Sox would have to get by Tampa Bay and Oakland first. They trail the Rays by four games and the Athletics by 3½.

That’s hardly insurmountable with 51 games remaining. But the Sox are a telling 0-3 since the trade deadline passed without president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski adding reinforcements.

Now comes a day/night doubleheader on Saturday. The Sox are 1-5 at Yankee Stadium this season and have been outscored 31-17. This could get even worse in a hurry.

Eduardo Rodriguez, who pitched into the seventh inning, was left regretting a fastball he threw in the first inning that Gleyber Torres pulled into the left field stands for a grand slam.

“This is a game when you pay for your mistakes and I paid for mine,” said Rodriguez, who was given a 2-0 lead in the top of the inning when J.D. Martinez homered off James Paxton and quickly gave it back.

All of the runs were scored in the first inning, and the teams combined for only four hits after that. There were only eight hits total in a game that lasted a tidy 2 hours and 41 minutes.

“I thought it was going to be 10-8 or something like that after the first inning,” Red Sox second baseman Michael Chavis said. “But that was it.”

All the action happened with the first 10 batters. drew a walk with two outs in the top of the first inning. Martinez then pulled a low cutter into the seats in left field for his 24th home run.

Paxton allowed four home runs at a week earlier and it appeared nothing had changed.

“It was a good start, but I knew we needed to score more than that,” Jackie Bradley Jr. said.

Rodriguez lacked command when he took the mound in the bottom of the inning. D.J. LeMahieu singled to left field before Aaron Judge and Edwin Encarnacion drew consecutive walks on 11 pitches to load the bases.

“That’s something I have to work on,” Rodriguez said. “I have to get the ball more in the strike zone.”

Aaron Hicks fouled out to first base, but Torres stayed on an inside fastball and drove it for his 21st home run.

“He always tries to ambush me and I was trying to throw a fastball up,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez put the leadoff hitter on base in the second, third, and fourth innings, but did not allow a run.

Rodriguez had retired 9 of 10 when Torres drew a walk in the sixth inning. Gio Urshela followed with a hot shot behind the bag at third. made the play and fired to first base on one hop to get the out.

Rodriguez then retired Cameron Maybin on a ball back to the mound to leave Torres stranded at second.

Rodriguez was at 105 pitches after the sixth inning, but stayed in for the seventh and got two outs before LeMahieu doubled to right field over a leaping .

With Rodriguez at 113 pitches, Marcus Walden came in and struck out Judge.

“I was happy I gave us a chance but it wasn’t enough,” said Rodriguez, who fell to 13-5. It was his first loss since June 8.

Rodriguez allowed five hits and walked six, his most since last Sept. 20 at Yankee Stadium. But he stuck out eight and the Yankees were 0 for 6 with runners in scoring position against him outside of Torres’s home run.

The Sox had only two other hits against Paxton (6-6) and three relievers. Their last seven hitters went in order, none getting the ball out of the infield.

Paxton, who threw 68 percent fastballs against the Sox in that previous start, dropped it down to 52 percent Friday by mixing in more offspeed and breaking .

The lefthander retired eight in a row after Martinez’s home run.

That run ended when Martinez drew a walk in the fourth inning and singled to right field.

But Sam Travis popped to left field and Chavis grounded to second. Paxton did not allow another hit. He allowed the two runs on two hits with three walks and six .

How low can Red Sox go? We’re finding out

Dan Shaughnessy

Let’s not exaggerate. The Red Sox have endured worse weeks than the one we just witnessed. There was January 1934 when a large portion of Fenway Park burned down in the aftermath of a 63-86 season. There was 1983 when Buddy LeRoux staged an ownership coup on the same night the club was honoring , who had lapsed into a coma. There was the day the Sox hired Joe Kerrigan as their manager. And let’s not forget that fateful week in 2011 when the Sox fired Terry Francona after a collapse owed to chicken and beer.

When a team has been around since 1901, there’s a high bar for low moments, but this past week in Sox World was pretty darned bad. The defending champs appeared demoralized by their front office’s inability to acquire pitching help at the trading deadline. Baseball boss Dave Dombrowski delivered a message that he doesn’t believe in the 2019 Sox and the players responded accordingly, losing five straight for the first time since a last-place season in 2015.

The Yankees beat the Sox, 4-2, on Friday to push Boston to a season-high (low?) 11½ games out of first place. The dead-ass Sox managed only three hits. They are 13 back in the loss column and trail Cleveland, Tampa Bay, and Oakland in the wild-card quest.

Boston’s uneven season seemed headed in the right direction when the Sox pummeled the first-place Yankees by an aggregate 38-13 at Fenway last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. It felt like the real Red Sox were finally back. We figured their chances would improve more when Dombrowski acquired some golden arms at the trading deadline.

Then it all went away. Dombrowski did nothing to supplement Boston’s wobbly bullpen at Wednesday’s deadline, effectively delivering a message that he’d given up on this crew. His team responded by playing zombie ball — getting swept at home by the underwhelming Tampa Bay Rays.

“I think it might be probably the most disappointing losses of the season so far,’’ shortstop Xander Bogaerts said after the Sox lost their fourth straight Thursday. The 2018 Red Sox never lost four straight games.

Friday in the Bronx, the Sox fell behind, 4-2, when Eduardo Rodriguez coughed up a grand slam to Gleyber Torres in the first inning. And they never recovered. lugs his 5-10 record to the mound Saturday afternoon in the first game of a day-night doubleheader. Sale is 0-3 with a 7.71 ERA vs. the Yankees this year.

If this team with the highest payroll in baseball — almost the same cast that won 119 games last year — fails to make the playoffs, Dombrowski gets awarded the largest slice of the blame pie for failing to get pitching help when it was needed. After not replacing and from the ’18 champs — plotting a championship defense based on hope more than reality — Dombro in 2019 has watched a parade of Triple A relievers lead the world in jailbreak innings and blown saves.

Solutions?

On July 2, Dombrowski announced that $64 million starter would come to the rescue in the bullpen. Since that date, Eovaldi has five relief appearances, surrendering five runs and 10 hits in 4⅔ innings with zero saves.

On July 13, Dombrowski traded for meatball artist Andrew Cashner, a career 56-85 , who has one winning season in 10 years. In four starts with the Sox, Cashner is 1-3 with a 7.33 ERA.

Then came the trading deadline and . . . nothing. Dombrowski admitted that the Sox can’t catch the Yankees, then said, “You cannot believe the number of clubs that called me about our bullpen guys.’’

This was one was right out of the Lou Gorman playbook, something along the lines of “What would we do with Willie McGee,’’ or “The sun will rise, the sun will set, and I’ll have lunch.’’

Dombro evidently was trying to demonstrate the dearth of bullpen arms throughout baseball, but his remark served to inflame an already combustible climate. The Sox went out and lost two more games.

Now, topping off an already bad week, manager Alex Cora is going all Bobby Valentine on us.

Thursday at Fenway, Cora told the media he planned to have a team meeting in New York. Asked about the nature of his message, Cora said, “We’ll see. I’ll make it up tonight on the way to New York.’’

Friday, Cora said there was no meeting, then shifted into Bobby V overdrive.

Was he kidding about the meeting or did he change his mind, we wondered?

“All of the above,’’ answered the manager. “I said it two days ago that we might address what’s going on. After the trading deadline somebody asked me about the mood of the clubhouse. ‘Were they down because we didn’t add somebody that day? ‘I said, ‘We might, we might not. I might talk to the guys about where we’re at.’ ’’

So why did he decide against a meeting?

“I’ll do it on a daily basis, it’s just not behind closed doors.’’

Any cause and effect regarding the team’s dismal play after no acquisitions by the front office?

“No,’’ Cora said before launching into a string of goofy non-answers.

It was just plain weird.

At this hour the Sox are the seventh-best team in an American League populated by only 10 teams that are actually trying to win games. They are morphing into one of the region’s most unpopular teams — a group that includes the 2018-19 Celtics and the 2011 Red Sox.

There’s still time for this group to redeem itself, but as Yogi Berra might say, it’s getting late early this year.

Sunday starters , J.A. Happ off on paternity leave

Peter Abraham

The Yankees placed J.A. Happ on ’s paternity list on Friday afternoon. The Red Sox did the same with David Price about an hour later.

But both lefthanders are expected to make their starts Sunday night.

The rule allows players to take as many as three days off, but they can return after one or two days.

Tiffany Price had the couple’s second baby on Thursday, a girl, and her husband has told the team he expects to be at Yankee Stadium for the game.

“Hopefully he can be here with us,” Sox manager Alex Cora said before the 4-2, series-opening loss on Friday at Yankee Stadium.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone said the same thing about Happ.

Price is 0-2 with a 6.52 in his last four starts. He faced the Yankees in the Bronx on June 2 and allowed two runs over 6⅓ innings in a game the Sox won, 8-5.

Price is 7-4 with a 3.86 earned run average in 20 starts.

Happ has faced the Sox twice this season and given up four earned runs over 11⅓ innings.

“Happy for both of them,” Cora said. “If they can compete on Sunday, it’ll be great.”

Hembree back on the shelf Righthanded reliever Heath Hembree was placed on the with what the Red Sox said was “right lateral inflammation” of his elbow.

Hembree was out from June 11–July 4 with an extensor strain on his elbow. He pitched 12 times after returning and allowed nine earned runs on 14 hits and six walks over nine innings.

“We’re concerned,” Cora said. “You could see. Heath is a guy that, when he’s good, he can locate that fastball up in the zone and he wasn’t able to do it.”

Hembree met with head athletic trainer Brad Pearson and pitching coach Dana LeVangie after his outing Thursday and the decision was made to shut him down.

He pitched single innings Wednesday and Thursday against Tampa Bay, and allowed three runs on three hits and two walks.

Hembree averaged 94.8 miles per hour with his four-seam fastball before his first stint on the injured list. It was 93.04 after his return.

Hembree downplayed the seriousness of his injury.

“I didn’t feel like my normal self. It wasn’t worth pushing it any more,” he said. “Let’s get it healthy. It’s day to day trying to get some inflammation out of it.”

Hembree claimed an MRI did not show ligament damage, only some swelling. He expects to return this season.

“It’s nothing serious,” he said. “It just came to a point where it wasn’t really worth it. I was grinding; I was struggling.”

Cora seemed less convinced.

“It’s something that is very concerning,” he said. “This is a guy that’s a big part of what we do in the bullpen. It’s hard for him, obviously. Not having him now, somebody else has to step up.”

Hembree has appeared in 232 games for the Red Sox since 2015. Only , with 273, has more in that time.

Super Saturday The teams have a split doubleheader Saturday, with the first game scheduled for 1:05 p.m. and second at 7:05 p.m. The Red Sox plan to start Chris Sale in Game 1 and Brian Johnson in Game 2. Johnson would be making his first major league appearance since June 22. He has been on the injured list since with an undisclosed non-baseball injury. The Yankees will go with Domingo German in Game 1 and likely Chad Green as an opener in the second game for an inning or two. The Yankees are 8-0 when Green has started this season . . . The Sox recalled infielder Marco Hernandez from Triple A Pawtucket to replace Price on the roster. Righthander Josh Smith replaced Hembree . . . The Yankees reinstated Brett Gardner from the injured list and batted him ninth; he went 0 for 3 as the center fielder. They also recalled lefthander Stephen Tarpley from Triple A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and optioned utility player Tyler Wade to Triple A . . . Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez, who is on the IL with inflammation in his right knee, has started working out and could return as soon as Sunday . . . Thurman Munson’s widow, Diana Munson, threw out the first pitch on the 40th anniversary of the Yankee captain’s death in a plane crash.

Here’s what it might have taken for Red Sox to make a deal

Alex Speier

Could the Red Sox have made a deal for a reliever before the deadline? Of course. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski made clear that the team’s decision not to beef up its bullpen was based on a determination that the acquisition cost did not justify the return.

When looking at the deals that did occur, it’s not hard to imagine the Red Sox having made some kind of upgrade to its reliever group.

“I do think the Red Sox had the ammunition to make some of these deals,” said Baseball America executive editor J.J. Cooper.

In order to assess the team’s decision to pass on the bullpen market, it makes sense to examine the trades that did occur — and approximate prospect equivalents in the Red Sox system. Here, then, is a look at eight deadline deals involving relievers, and what such a deal might have looked like for the Red Sox to land the arms that ended up going to other contenders.

RELIEVER: Braves acquire Shane Greene from Tigers

PROSPECTS: LHP Joey Wentz (21 years old, AA: 5-8, 4.72), OF Travis Demeritte (24, AAA: .286/.387/.558)

Greene was having a dominant, All-Star season for Detroit, and came with team control through 2020. The profiles of players added by Detroit don’t have obvious equivalents in the Sox system.

Demeritte is a big league-ready outfielder, though he projects as more of a fourth outfielder. The Sox don’t have such a player, so it’s possible that the team would have had to offer a higher-upside prospect who wasn’t as close to the big leagues — picture, say, Jarren Duran, or perhaps a package of Double A outfielder Marcus Wilson and Lowell outfielder Nick Decker, both of whom have higher upside than Demeritte.

Wentz likewise lacks a clear equivalent: A lefthander in the upper levels with the ceiling of a back-of-the- rotation starter. In recent years, the Sox dealt players who now fit exactly that bill, whether righthander Shaun Anderson to the Giants in the Eduardo Nunez deal or lefty Logan Allen to the Padres for Craig Kimbrel. Pawtucket righthander Mike Shawaryn is probably a reliever, and so has less trade value than Wentz.

RELIEVER: Braves acquire Chris Martin from Rangers

PROSPECT: LHP Kolby Allard (21, AAA: 7-5, 4.17, 8.0 K/9)

Again, the Red Sox lack someone like Allard: A big league-ready starter with back-of-the-rotation potential. The Braves have boatloads. In full-season levels, the Sox have three pitchers who have shown clear starter stuff: Double A righty Bryan Mata, High A righty Thad Ward, and rehabbing lefty Jay Groome.

Groome has an enormous ceiling, but his value has been savaged by the fact that he’s still rehabbing from Tommy John. The Sox woudn’t want to sell low on him. Nor would the team want to part with a potential mid-rotation pitcher like Mata in exchange for a middle reliever like Martin, even one having an excellent year. Ward, meanwhile, might have a higher ceiling than Allard, but his distance from the big leagues makes it unclear whether he’d have more, less, or the same value to the Rangers — or whether he’d have too much value for the Sox to be willing to deal him.

RELIEVER: Twins acquire RHP Sam Dyson from Giants

PROSPECTS: OF Jaylin Davis (25, AA/AAA: .298/.392/.563), RHP Prelander Berroa (19, short-season, 2- 1, 4.55 ERA, 10.5 K/9), RHP Kai-Wei Teng (20, A: 4-0, 1.60, 8.7 K/9)

This is exactly the sort of three-for-one deal that the Red Sox made in 2017, when they packaged three arms to the Mets in exchange for Addison Reed. There were no core prospects moved.

“Anyone can make that deal,” said Cooper. “There’s never going to be a time when you can’t make those deals.”

Davis represents an upper-levels big league depth piece with significant power. Davis is the sort of player whom the Sox likely hope Double A outfielder Marcus Wilson might become in another year or two. Berroa is a big arm in the lower levels, a profile that every organization features in bulk. Teng is a pitcher with fringier stuff and a chance to be a back-end starter, perhaps the value equivalent of Red Sox Double A righty Kutter Crawford.

RELIEVER: Nationals acquire Daniel Hudson from Blue Jays

PROSPECT: RHP Kyle Johnston (23, High A: 9-9, 4.03, 8.6 K/9)

Johnston is a potential back-end reliever with a potential plus fastball and plus slider, but limited command. Some might see Shawaryn as a pitcher with similar value because of greater certainty about the ability to contribute in the big leagues, albeit with a lower ceiling. Others might see less value, and it’s possible that the Jays see Johnston as a starter, in which case the equivalent prospect — particularly given the possibility of a penalty for trades inside the division — would be Ward, a heavy cost for 20 innings of a middle reliever.

RELIEVERS: Astros acquire Aaron Sanchez and Joe Biagini from Blue Jays

PROSPECTS: OF Derek Fisher (25, AAA: .286/.401/.522)

RED SOX EQUIVALENT: Fisher is a big league-ready outfielder who has significant power, albeit with holes in his swing. But he’s blocked in Houston, an organization with power-hitting outfielders to spare, and he’s out of options, a fact that caps his value and probably makes him a less valuable asset than, say, Michael Chavis, who has two options left.

If the Blue Jays view Jarren Duran as a starter, then he’d probably have equivalent or greater value than Fisher — though with the Red Sox facing significant uncertainty about the future of their outfield with J.D. Martinez, Mookie Betts, and Jackie Bradley Jr. all potentially eligible for free agency in the next two offseasons, dealing a potential everyday outfielder in the upper levels is the type of move that the team could regret for years. Maybe there would have been a package of lower-levels prospects — say, Nick Decker and Thad Ward? — that could have enticed Toronto, but including multiple high-ceiling prospects would be a risk for a team trying to refill its system.

RELIEVERS: Brewers acquire , Ray Black from Giants

PROSPECT: IF Mauricio Dubon (25, AAA: .294/.332/.470)

The Red Sox once had both Pomeranz and Dubon. The team dealt Dubon in December 2016 in the Tyler Thornburg deal, the worst trade of Dombrowski’s tenure. Dubon projects as either a starting second baseman or a valuable utility player who is major league ready. The closest chips in the Sox system are Marco Hernandez and Double A shortstop C.J. Chatham, but most see Dubon as more valuable because he drives the ball with greater frequency and because health questions hover over the two Sox players.

RELIEVER: Nationals acquire Roenis Elias from Mariners

PROSPECTS: RHP Elvis Alvarado (20, Rookie ball: 2-2, 6.00, 11.4 K/9) and LHP Taylor Guilbeau (26, AA/AAA: 3-2, 2.89, 10.3 K/9)

As with the Dyson deal, this was the type of deal that most teams could have made. As an upper levels reliever, Guilbeau might be equivalent in value to Mike Shawaryn — albeit with the advantage of being lefthanded — while Alvarado is a hard-throwing wild card, a converted outfielder who tops out at 100 miles per hour but who has walked a batter an inning. The Sox have a similar pitcher in outfielder-turned- lefthanded pitcher Yoan Aybar.

RELIEVER: Rays acquire RHP Nick Anderson and RHP Trevor Richards (starter) from Marlins

PROSPECTS: RHP Ryne Stanek (28, MLB: 3.40 ERA, 9.9 K/9, OF Jesus Sanchez (21, AA/AAA: .262/.321/.386, No. 48 in Baseball America’s Top 10)

The Sox don’t have a prospect who matches Sanchez in industry value — though it’s possible that Marlins decision-makers could hold, say, Triston Casas or Bobby Dalbec in extremely high regard. Still, those two represent the absolute best prospects in the Sox system. Moreover, the team wouldn’t be in position to part with a contributing big league reliever like Stanek. The Rays have one of the most loaded systems in the minors, giving them greater comfort in dealing a prospect rankings darling.

Here’s the story behind the anti-prison banner draped over the Green Monster

Nik DeCosta-Klipa

When local activists found out that employees of the prison industry reserved a block of tickets to see the Red Sox take on the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday at Fenway Park, they decided to send a message.

And they did so in boldface letters from atop the Green Monster.

“NO ICE, NO PRISONS, NO MORE CAGES,” read the black-and-white banner draped over the left field wall before the top of the second inning.

Two prison abolition groups are taking credit for the demonstration.

Deeper than Water, which focuses on local prison conditions, particularly water quality for inmates, said in a Facebook post Thursday night that its members and those with Black and Pink, another anti-prison group, were trying to catch the attention of the American Correctional Association, which is holding its annual conference in Boston this week. According to its website, the conference, which runs through Aug. 6, organized a “night out” at Fenway Park for Thursday’s game.

“We wanted to make sure that they knew that they were not welcome here, and not appreciated,” Katie Omberg, a coordinator to the Boston chapter of Black and Pink, told Boston.com in an interview Friday.

Omberg was one of four protesters, as well as a legal observer, who were subsequently ejected from the game. Omberg said the ballpark’s security apprehended them “pretty quickly.” Red Sox spokeswoman Zineb Curran told Boston.com that the group violated the team’s signage policy, which prohibits hanging banners over the Green Monster, and that all five individuals were “escorted out of the ballpark.”

The demonstration was reminiscent of the anti-racism banner that garnered national attention after it was unfurled over the Monster during a 2017 game.

According to Omberg, the group was looking to capitalize on the “attention and energy” around migrant detention centers on the country’s southern border to shed light on conditions in the American prison system as a whole. She noted that the ACA conference features a broad swath of the industry, from companies like GEO Group and CoreCivic that directly contract with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to run migrant detention centers to vendors at local prisons in Massachusetts.

“As prison abolitionists, we were really excited to keep the conversation going,” Omberg said.

Amid troubling reports about the migrant detention centers, Deeper than Water wrote on Facebook that they were making three demands with the ACA “prison profiteers” in town: “1. Shut down the cages and the camps 2. Stop accrediting facilities that abuse people and violate human rights 3. Make the credentialing process public.”

The ACA did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday afternoon.

Unlike reform-minded advocates, Omberg said Deeper than Water and Black and Pink believe the “prison system, as it exists in the U.S., is beyond repair in a number of ways, because is a racist and classist system” — though the group also provides local support services to people inside and outside the system. Black and Pink particularly focuses on helping LGBTQ and HIV-positive people affected by incarceration; Deeper than Water was founded in light of long-running concerns about unsafe drinking at MCI Norfolk, the largest prison in Massachusetts, which Omberg said still hasn’t been addressed.

“Our belief is that instead of trying to make prisons more humane, the actual humane thing to do would be to do more transformative justice, community accountability, those sorts of models,” Omberg said, conceding that, for many, their vision may be “harder imagine compared to the status quo.”

Asked about the response their demonstration received, Omberg said she found it interesting “how many people have been saying things like politics and sports shouldn’t mix.” It’s a notion with which she disagrees.

“I have literally seen people [online] commenting ‘I come to sports to forget about what’s happening,’” Omberg said. “I can’t imagine living in a world where you can forget that children are in cages, and even adults are in cages — that we see anyone as so disposable — and you can come for nine innings and forget that other human beings are experiencing that.”

* The Boston Herald

Red Sox put off winning for another day in 4-2 loss to the Yankees

Michael Silverman

Not today.

The message Arya Stark delivered to the prospect of death applied equally well — once again — to the Red Sox’ desire to spark new life to their season-in-decline.

Before the Red Sox lost 4-2 to the dreaded Yankees, manager Alex Cora said, “We have to play better — it starts here you know, this is where it starts.”

It did not start Friday in the Bronx, where the Red Sox lost their fifth game in a row, mustering just three hits on the night and were retired in order five separate times.

Eduardo Rodriguez’ inability to revere and protect the first-inning 2-0 lead bestowed upon him — he allowed a grand slam to Gleyber Torres in the bottom of the first inning — was all it took for the Red Sox to stay far behind the Yankees in the AL East and drop further behind the three teams ahead of them in the AL wild card race.

“We didn’t play well against Tampa, we didn’t play well against the Yankees on Sunday — today was a good baseball game,” Cora said. “Just one of those, the way it looked in the first inning, I thought it was going to be 13-12, but both pitchers did an outstanding job and that big swing put us in a good spot.”

Each starter, Rodriguez and the Yankees’ James Paxton, began on a shaky note before settling into a nearly unhittable groove.

Paxton struck out the first two batters of the game before issuing a walk to Xander Bogaerts.

That brought up J.D. Martinez, who homered off Paxton in the Yankees left-hander’s awful start at Fenway last week. Martinez did it again here, golfing a ball over the left field wall for the 2-0 Red Sox lead.

Rodriguez gained no such two-out edge to begin his night. He put the first three batters he faced on base, via a single and then two walks.

One out later, Gleyber Torres launched a grand slam to left that ignited the crowd and put the Yankees up, 4-2.

After that, both Paxton and Rodriguez spent the next few innings not messing around.

Including the final out of the first inning, Paxton retired eight Red Sox in a row — he struck out the side in the second — before issuing a walk and allowing a single in the fourth. He stranded both base-runners.

Over his final two innings, Paxton allowed only a walk. He finished his six innings with the two runs allowed, just two hits, six strikeouts and three walks.

In that July 26 start at Fenway, Paxton went just four innings and allowed seven runs on nine hits, four of them home runs.

“He made some adjustments from the last one against us,” Cora said. “He had the fastball arm-side against righties, 95-96 (mph), he didn’t have last week. Actually, the cutter played more like a slider. It was bigger. Xander (Bogaerts) put a good at-bat, then J.D., but his stuff was that good. And we didn’t do too much against him.”

Rodriguez still struggled with his control over the rest of his start — he issued at least one walk in five of his first six innings — but when he threw the ball over the plate, Yankees hitters were flummoxed.

The eight walks issued by Rodriguez were a season-high for a Red Sox starter, and Rodriguez now is 0-3 with a 5.29 ERA over his last six starts at Yankee Stadium.

“I know these guys score runs every time I go out there. It was my part today to go out there and throw seven, six inning with no runs,” Rodriguez said. “I failed in that part.”

He struck out four in a row in the fifth and the beginning of the sixth. After that rocky first inning, Rodriguez allowed just one hit, an infield single, over his next five innings.

Rodriguez reached the seventh, retiring the first two batters before DJ LeMahieu’s scorching double ended his night. Reliever Marcus Walden did his job, striking out Aaron Judge.

In his 6⅔ innings, Rodriguez allowed the four runs on five hits, striking out eight while walking a whopping six Yankees.

“His stuff was really good,” Cora said of Rodriguez. “His command for the first three hitters, it was off. And too bad, because he actually pitched a pretty good game.”

Not good enough on this day.

Paternity leave may impact David Price’s start Sunday

Michael Silverman

The best excuse possible to leave a baseball team — the birth of a baby — has lent some uncertainty to the pitching plans for both the Red Sox and the Yankees.

David Price and the Yankees’ J.A. Happ went on paternity leave Friday. Both are scheduled to start Sunday night.

Assuming all goes smoothly, both fathers still are hopeful to be able to be back to work.

“Hopefully,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said about Price returning. “He can be on the list for a maximum of three days so hopefully he can be here with us.”

Yankees manager Aaron Boone said the plan currently is for Happ to be on the mound Sunday.

Cora took three days’ paternity leave when he was bench coach in Houston in 2017.

“I was telling somebody earlier today it puts everything in perspective,” Cora said. “These guys are athletes and everybody expects them to perform on a nightly basis. I know they make a lot of money, but at the end they’re human beings and they’ve got their families. Hopefully for both families — happy for both of them. If they can compete on Sunday it’ll be great.

“Probably the first (time), huh, that something like that happened? But it puts everything in perspective.”

Hembree to IL Heath Hembree, one of the most effective Red Sox relievers the first half of the season (11.2 strikeouts per nine innings, 2.64 ERA) is back on the IL after an elbow injury that never fully healed flared up again.

The right-hander expressed optimism he would be able to return this season, although he could not offer a timetable for his return, only that when he returned he truly would be good to pitch.

“This time I want to make sure it’s completely gone, I want to make sure it has no symptoms of what I had previously, this time I want to try and do it the right way,” Hembree said.

He admitted the elbow was not 100 percent when he did return, but he figured, wrongly, it would feel better.

“I can’t say it was ever completely gone. It was there but I felt like I was good enough to pitch. I would throw one game and the next morning it was a little crankier than the day before, just something I was trying to grind through and it just came to a point where it just really wasn’t worth it anymore.”

Hembree did not look good in his inning of work Thursday night against the Rays, allowing a homer, another hit, a walk and a to the six batters he faced.

“It’s something that is very concerning,” Cora said. “This is a guy that is a big part of what we do in the bullpen and it’s hard for him, obviously, and not having him now, somebody else has to step up.”

Hembree said an MRI revealed nothing alarming. For now, he will wait for inflammation and discomfort to subside before resuming baseball activities.

“I’m definitely expecting to be back this season but we don’t know if it’s going to be one week, two weeks, three weeks, just not sure,” Hembree said.

Added Cora: “Hopefully this is something that is not long-term, but we have to be careful. When he came back, we thought it wasn’t going to happen again and he was fine, and look what happened now. So we can’t control that, but the hope is for him to pitch again.”

Sale starts it Chris Sale will start the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader, with Brian Johnson the starter for Game 2. The Yankees will throw Domingo German in the first game and use an opener in the second game.

In each of the last five Red Sox-Yankees doubleheaders, the Yankees won Game 1 with the Red Sox taking Game 2. …

The five-game losing streak the Red Sox are on is their longest since losing eight in a row in July of 2015. … The Red Sox have homered in eight straight games.

J.D. Martinez hit his 24th home run, his fourth in his last seven games. He has six home runs in 12 games against the Yankees this season. …

The Red Sox are the middle of a stretch in which they are playing 17 games in 16 days, and 34 games over 34 days. Following that, they will play just 13 games in 19 days from mid-August to Sept. 2.

Unfortunately, Alex Cora decides not to hold clubhouse meeting

Tom Keegan

First pitch wasn’t due for another two hours and already things had turned bizarre in this weird title defense of a season for the Red Sox.

Manager Alex Cora, a very clear, skilled communicator in multiple languages, made statements that led print and broadcast audiences to believe that he planned to address his players in a clubhouse meeting, expected to take place in the Bronx before Friday’s opener of a four-game, three-day series at Yankee Stadium.

No meeting. No clear explanation of why not. No way to really know what happened.

Did Cora have a change of heart? Did he decide that since he likes to let the players be the first to know when something’s on his mind he had better say that he never had any intention of holding a meeting, and then say he was misunderstood? Did a player whisper to him that a meeting would be a bad idea, given that the roster is stocked with so many decorated baseball veterans?

Whatever the reason, it was disappointing to hear that there would be no meeting. Clubhouse meetings can be vastly overrated and overused. But in this case, because one of Cora’s strengths is that he’s not a particularly formal kind of guy given to lectures, it sounded like a good idea for him to step out of character and show the players a side of him they don’t get to see. After all, status quo isn’t exactly spurring the Red Sox to greatness.

Peel a little paint off the wall with volume, let the players know they’re playing so far beneath the backs of their baseball cards that they ought to be embarrassed. Go negative in one meeting and see how it works.

Cora decided not to step out of his comfort zone to try to jolt some life into a group that too often looks a little foggy on the diamond.

“Nah, I mean, we always talk,” Cora said when asked about whether the anticipated meeting had taken place. “The way I said it, yeah, it sounded that way. But we always address stuff during the day. Can be in the food room, in the hitters’ meeting, the pitchers’ meeting. We always try to find something positive that we’re doing. Or if we’re not doing something right, you know, just address it.”

Cora had said earlier in the week he would choose a different “setting” from normal, so he must have changed his mind.

“We do it on a daily basis,” Cora said. “I think the way I said it was kind of, I don’t know.”

He was on the verge of saying he didn’t express himself clearly and then took an unfortunate turn that essentially gave his own credibility a hit.

“First of all, if we’re going to have a team meeting you guys are the last people who are going to know about it,” Cora said.

A WEEI radio audience was Cora’s first audience to know about it, then the reporters who cover the Red Sox, so they weren’t the last ones to find out about the meeting that never materialized.

“We communicate with the players on a daily basis in different places,” he said. “It could be at breakfast in the morning or lunch, or in the clubhouse, on the bus.”

But this one sounded as if it were going to be different. Oh, well. Meetings don’t usually amount to much anyway.

Cora’s a second-year manager, but this is all new to him, trying to inject spirit into a lifeless bunch.

“It’s a learning experience,” Cora said of coming from behind in a race for the postseason. “My only managing experience was 108 wins or whatever it was and magic carpet all the way to the World Series.”

And now this. What a letdown.

* The Providence Journal

Yankees 4, Red Sox 2: Gleyber Torres cracks a grand slam as Red Sox fall

Bill Koch

If there was a Red Sox pitcher upon whom you would bet your mortgage this season, Eduardo Rodriguez would be the guy.

Boston had won 17 of his last 20 starts coming into Friday. The Red Sox had captured all 12 games this season and 23 of their last 24 when Rodriguez completed six innings or more. The left-hander seemed to be the perfect pitcher to take the ball opening this four-game series against the Yankees.

Then the bottom of the first inning happened at Yankee Stadium, and a cold reminder was issued that Boston is spiraling out of playoff contention. Gleyber Torres cracked a grand slam to power a 4-2 New York victory, one that gave the hosts an 11½ -game lead over the Red Sox in the American League East standings.

Rodriguez found himself in immediate trouble in the first when D.J. LeMahieu sent a leadoff single to center. Aaron Judge and Edwin Encarnacion drew back-to-back walks, setting the table for Torres. He needed just one pitch to ultimately make the difference in the game, hammering a fastball in off the plate down the line in left.

The sellout crowd of 46,932 fans exploded with delight as the ball found the outfield boxes inside the foul pole. Torres made the slow trot around the bases, basking in the afterglow of his second career grand slam. His first came just six weeks ago against Tampa Bay, the latest career highlights for the 22-year-old star.

Rodriguez clamped down from there despite issuing a season-high six walks, his most since his last start at this venue almost 11 months ago. The left-hander’s career-high seven walks came on the evening when the Red Sox clinched their third straight A.L. East crown thanks to an 11-6 rally past New York. Winning a fourth straight division title looks more unlikely by the night.

J.D. Martinez cracked a two-run homer against James Paxton in the top of the first, seemingly the ideal start against a pitcher Boston shelled last weekend at Fenway Park. Paxton surrendered three home runs to Mookie Betts alone in that start a week ago, suffering a a10-5 defeat. He allowed just two hits this time around, steadying himself over six innings.

Boston is on a five-game losing streak, its longest such skid since dropping eight in a row in July 2015. Each of the other 29 teams in the big leagues had suffered a through a streak at least that long over that time frame.

Can the Red Sox come from behind? This is a new kind of playoff race

Bill Koch

Friday represented a new reality for the Red Sox.

The significant World Series experience among their coaching staff can’t help. The three straight American League East titles enjoyed by several members of the clubhouse are footnotes.

Boston is officially on a chase for its October future. The Red Sox entered 3½ games out of a wild card spot, cast adrift of the Rays after a demoralizing three-game sweep at Fenway Park. There is some soul searching to be done if Boston hopes to close the gap with just 52 games to play in the regular season.

“That experience is good to have, but at this point I don’t know how much that would factor into it,” said. “Just getting our foot in the door, giving ourselves an opportunity – I think that’s where that’s going to pay off the most.

“We’ve got to take care of business right now first and give ourselves that chance.”

That starts here at Yankee Stadium, a place where New York has captured 19 of its last 23 games against divisional opponents. And after last weekend’s proceedings in Boston, the sight of any Red Sox uniform was like waving a red cape in front of some angry bulls. The Yankees dropped three of four games while being torched for 44 runs, the most in any four-game series in the long history of the rivalry.

“We did a good job last week, but that was last week,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “Obviously we didn’t have a very good series against the Rays. There were some positives, but a lot of negatives. We have to clean it up, and it starts today.”

The Red Sox were 5-2 in this 14-game stretch against New York and Tampa Bay after the Yankees salvaged a 9-6 victory on Sunday night. That started a four-game losing streak for Boston, one that saw each member of its rotation deliver an ineffective performance. Andrew Cashner was the latest pitcher to be roughed up, matching his season high by allowing six earned runs on Thursday.

“I think at the end we didn’t execute on the mound,” Cora said. “A lot of traffic yesterday. Not too many good pitches before that. We paid the price.”

Eduardo Rodriguez seemed to be the perfect man to take the ball in this spot for the Red Sox. Boston was a blistering 17-3 in his previous 20 starts, including a 9-5 victory on Saturday. The Red Sox support Rodriguez with 8.39 runs per start, the most in the big leagues for any pitcher.

“We could do everything a little bit better right now,” Moreland said. “This team is very capable of doing it. We all know it. We’ve just got to get out there and put it together as a whole.”

“You can’t look at the big picture,” Cora said. “You can’t look at 10½ (games behind New York) or 2½ or 3½ or other teams. You have to take care of your business, and from there you just go.”

Red Sox riding red-hot Andrew Benintendi into Yankees series

Bill Koch

Andrew Benintendi is the latest Red Sox hitter to enjoy a hot streak.

The outfielder’s last 10 games have been nothing short of dominant. Benintendi has piled up 21 hits in that span, including a career-high three doubles in Thursday’s 9-4 loss against the Rays. Benintendi’s 11 extra- base hits and 12 RBI in that span coincide with a minor adjustment in his swing that’s paying significant dividends.

“Getting rid of the leg kick and making a small step to the pitcher,” Benintendi said. “I feel like that gives me more time to see the ball and adjust to pitches.”

Benintendi is treating right-handers and left-handers with equal scorn. He’s up to a career-high .295 against southpaws, up considerably from the .247 he posted last season. He’s totaled 16 walks and 26 strikeouts against left-handers this season – Benintendi’s ratio to 28 to 78 against right-handers.

“He’s hitting balls up the middle, off the wall, lefties, righties,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “He’s in a good place. He looks very hitterish now as opposed to early in the season.”

Red Sox place pitcher David Price on the paternity leave list

Bill Koch

David Price’s scheduled Sunday start at Yankee Stadium could be in doubt.

Price has been placed on the paternity leave list ahead of this weekend four-game series with New York. The Red Sox left-hander and his wife, Tiffany, are expecting their second child at any moment.

Boston offered no contingency plans as of Friday afternoon. Price is afforded a maximum of three days away from the team per the Collective Bargaining Agreement, which would take him through Sunday night.

“Hopefully he can be here with us,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said.

Price’s absence and the corresponding extended rest might come at an opportune time for Boston. He’s covered just 24 1/3 innings over his last five starts and recorded an out in the sixth inning only once. The Red Sox have lost in each of his last four turns through the rotation, including a 6-5 defeat against the Rays on Tuesday night.

“Physically, today was the best I’ve felt in a while,” Price said Tuesday. “I feel like I have some stuff to address these next four days before I pitch in New York. I think it’s going to get better.”

Price has surrendered 21 hits and 13 earned runs in his last three outings, compiling an 8.16 earned-run average. Two of those starts came against Tampa Bay, who suddenly holds a 3½-game lead over the Red Sox for the second A.L. wild card spot. Boston suffered a three-game sweep against the Rays at Fenway Park and came to the Bronx on a four-game losing streak.

Price’s scheduled opponent on Sunday, Yankees left-hander J.A. Happ, was also placed on the paternity leave list Friday afternoon. Neither team has named a starting pitcher for the series finale.

“These guys are athletes and everybody expects them to perform on a nightly basis,” Cora said. “I know they make a lot of money, but in the end they’re human beings. They’ve got their families. Happy for both of them.”

Boston recalled infielder Marco Hernandez from Triple-A Pawtucket to take Price’s place on the 25-man roster. Hernandez was 14-for-35 in eight games with the PawSox after being optioned on July 23. The utility infielder was batting .339 in 27 games with the Red Sox this season, making all 12 of his starts at second base.

Red Sox place reliever Heath Hembree (right elbow) on the IL

Bill Koch

Heath Hembree is headed to the injured list for the second time this season.

The Red Sox reliever is suffering from right lateral elbow inflammation and will be out of action for the immediate future. Hembree allowed an earned run for the fifth time in his last eight appearances Thursday, as Austin Meadows tagged him for a solo homer in the top of the ninth inning. That was the final straw in a 9-4 win that secured a three-game sweep for the Rays at Fenway Park.

“I think last night everybody kind of knew,” Hembree said. “I was grinding. I was struggling. I came out, met with the trainers, saw the doctor last night and we made a decision.”

Right-hander Josh Smith has been recalled from Triple-A Pawtucket to replace Hembree, who has pitched to an even 9.00 earned-run average since coming off the injured list in early July. He’s allowed 14 hits and walked six against just 10 strikeouts, and the right-hander’s velocity has suffered a noticeable dip. Hembree worked at an average of 92.5 mph on his four-seam fastball against Tampa Bay – he was at 94.2 mph as recently as June 10 against the Rangers.

“I was itching to get back and wanted to help the guys out,” Hembree said. “It’s just something that really probably needed a little bit more time.”

Hembree pitched to a 5.56 ERA through his first 11 appearances this season before turning things around. He was superb in 20 appearances between April 25 and that final outing against Texas, working to a 0.52 ERA and allowing just seven hits in 17 1/3 innings. Hembree said an MRI showed no ligament damage and he’s hoping to return before the close of the season.

“This is a guy who is a big part of what we do in the bullpen,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “It’s hard for him obviously. Not having him now, somebody else has to step up.”

* MassLive.com

Rodriguez, Red Sox starter, shows signs of maturity by bouncing back after first-inning grand slam

Chris Cotillo

After Eduardo Rodriguez brushed off a first-inning Gleyber Torres grand slam and settled down to last 6 2/3 innings against a tough Yankees lineup Friday night, Red Sox manager Alex Cora was posed a question.

Would the Rodriguez of old have been able to battle back and give his team chance to win like that?

Cora stuttered for a few seconds, trying to come up with a diplomatic answer. Then he told the truth.

“To be honest with you, no,” Cora said. “I think he’s in a great spot. Probably last year, he would’ve put his head down and it was going to be a short one. Now, he just kept working and making pitches. Made adjustments and he gave us what he did.”

What Rodriguez gave the Sox was 5 2/3 strong innings after the first, working around two hits and four walks to pitch into the seventh inning. Though Boston mustered only three hits on the night and had virtually no answer for New York starter James Paxton after J.D. Martinez’s first-inning homer, Rodriguez kept them in a 4-2 game much longer than it looked like he would.

“His stuff was really good,” Cora said. “His command, just for the first three hitters, was off. Too bad, because he pitched a pretty good game.”

Cora has been harder on Rodriguez than any other player since taking over last season. He was tough on him toward the end of the season, preached accountability when the lefty failed to cover first base on a key play in the ALDS and blasted him for his approach after a lackadaisical start against the Mets in .

He admitted his tough love approach in March.

“Of the five guys,” Cora said, referencing his rotation full of proven veterans, “he’s the only one I can do it with.”

Cora’s approach has largely worked this season, as Rodriguez leads the Red Sox in innings (135 1/3) and has posted a 4.19 ERA in 23 starts. The Red Sox have won 17 of those outings, in part due to strong run support but also because Rodriguez has largely showed up over the last three months.

Friday night was one of the rare occasions where the Red Sox lost a game Rodriguez started. It’s too bad, because he sure gave them a chance after the first.

“That’s what I was trying to do,” Rodriguez said. “Go out there and get outs, go deep in the game. Let the game go how it was.”

Gleyber Torres’ early grand slam sinks Boston Red Sox in 4-2 loss to Yankees

Chris Cotillo

Out of the 113 pitches Eduardo Rodriguez threw against the Yankees on Friday night, one made the difference.

It was his 20th pitch of the night, a first-pitch fastball that Gleyber Torres took off the inside part of the plate and sent into the left-field bleachers for a grand slam. Torres’ blast erased J.D. Martinez’s two-run homer from the top half of the first and gave the Yankees a 4-2 lead that would, eight innings later, become the final score as the Sox dropped their season-high fifth game in a row.

On a night when Boston’s offense did little against James Paxton, Rodriguez worked around six walks to put together a surprisingly impressive outing. The lefty settled down nicely after Torres’ slam, holding the Yankees scoreless for the next 5 2/3 innings and departing having allowed four earned runs on five hits while striking out eight in 6 2/3 innings.

Martinez’s blast was the only extra-base hit for the Red Sox, who had just three hits. The output came just a week after they hit Paxton hard at Fenway Park, scoring seven runs— including four on three homers from Mookie Betts— in four innings in a 10-5 win last Friday.

Yankees relievers Tommy Kahnle, Zack Britton and each tossed shutout innings in relief of Paxton, who struck out six in six innings and improved to 2-1 against Boston this season.

Boston’s five-game losing streak is its longest since 2015, when they lost eight in a row from July 12-23. The Sox fell to 11 games behind the Yankees in the A.L. East and are four games out of a wild-card spot.

The Sox will have two chances to bounce back Saturday with a day-night doubleheader scheduled at Yankee Stadium. Lefty Chris Sale will pitch opposite right Domingo German in Game 1, which starts at 1:05 p.m.

Martinez hits 24th homer of year

The lone offensive bright spot for the Sox was Martinez’s first-inning homer, which put Boston up 2-0. The blast was Martinez’s 24th of the season.

Heath Hembree elbow injury: Boston Red Sox pitcher admits he rushed back from injured list in July, team ‘very concerned’ with recurrence of soreness

Chris Cotillo

Since returning from the injured list in early July, Red Sox reliever Heath Hembree simply hasn’t looked right. Despite a significant drop in velocity and striking lack of command, both the pitcher and his manager have repeatedly claimed the right-hander was healthy.

That all changed Friday, when Hembree was put back on the IL with inflammation in his right elbow. Manager Alex Cora finally admitted concern regarding the health of Hembree’s arm.

“After his outing, he came down and talked to (trainer) Brad (Pearson) and (pitching coach) Dana (LeVangie),” Cora said. “It’s very concerning.”

Hembree, who gained Cora’s trust by posting a 0.59 ERA in 18 appearances from April 29 to June 10, missed three weeks with an extensor strain in his right arm in late June. Since returning, he has allowed 10 runs (nine earned) on 14 hits in nine innings while having his average fastball velocity drop almost two full miles per hour.

Hembree admitted Friday that he has tried to pitch through soreness since returning in early July.

“I can’t say (the pain) was ever fully, completely gone,” he said. “It was there, but I felt like I was good enough to pitch. I would throw one game, and then the next morning it was a little bit crankier than the day before. It was just something I was trying to grind through, and it came to the point where it wasn’t really worth it anymore.”

Peppered with questions about Hembree’s health in the last few weeks, Cora has repeatedly said he believes the righty is healthy. That all changed Thursday night, when Hembree threw more breaking balls than normal in an inning against the Rays and complained to team trainers once he was removed.

“When he came down, I was like, ‘Ok, there’s something going on here,’” Cora said. “I didn’t ask him specifically if he had been feeling it for a while. Knowing the guy and that he wants to compete, help the team and contribute out there, maybe he was feeling it. Not as bad as yesterday.”

Hembree said an MRI came back clean, revealing only inflammation. He wasn’t sure when he’ll be ready to return to the bullpen.

“I feel good,” Hembree said. “It’s not serious. It’s just irritated, some swelling. It’s just kind of a pissed off elbow. I need to let it rest.”

Hembree and Cora both expressed hope the right-hander would be able to return this season. The hope is that a more careful rehab process will result in the elbow issue being gone for good.

“This time I want to make sure it’s completely gone,” Hembree said. “I’m going to make sure there’s no symptoms of what I had previously. This time I want to try to do it the right way.”

Boston Red Sox team meeting in New York never happened, Alex Cora says; why not?

Chris Cotillo

One day after telling reporters he planned on holding a rare formal team meeting with his players before their series against the Yankees, Red Sox manager Alex Cora said no such get-together was happening.

Cora said Thursday that he planned on getting his team together by the end of this week to regroup after the July 31 trade deadline. He said he planned on drawing up a message on the team’s flight to New York after Thursday’s game in preparation for an occasion he described as “not common at all.”

“I think it’s important not because of what people think,” Cora said Thursday. "It’s just what’s coming now. It’s Aug. 1, Aug. 2, whenever we talk. And there’s a reality where we’re at. And they know. But it’s just a reminder. And we do that most of the time but in a different setting.”

Asked Friday if the team had met before their weekend series in New York, Cora said no.

“The way I said it was kind of out of proportion," Cora said. "First of all, if I’m going to have a team meeting, you guys are going to be the last people who will know about it. Second, we communicate with players on a daily basis.”

The last two weeks have been chaotic for the Sox, who pushed themselves back into contention with a 5-2 stretch against the Rays and Yankees before standing pat at the deadline and ultimately getting swept by the Rays in embarrassing fashion at home. Instead of getting everyone together to reset before a crucial four- game series in the Bronx, Cora said, he sprinkled in a message of urgency in his normal interactions with players over the last few days.

“I do it on a daily basis,” he said. “It’s just not a closed-door meeting. It’s just not, let’s close doors and let me go at it.”

Cora claiming to have pivoted 180 degrees in 24 hours is up for interpretation. Maybe he had a genuine change of heart on the most effective way to communicate with his players. Another possibility is that he did hold a meeting and decided to tell a white lie in an effort to make it seem like the team isn’t panicking.

What’s not up for debate is that the weekend series in New York is a critical one for a Sox team that now sits 10 games out of first place in the A.L. East and 3 1/2 games out of a wild-card spot.

“It’s an important series,” Cora said. “We need to play better. We played four games against the Yankees and we did a good job last week, but that’s last week. Obviously, didn’t have a great series against the Rays. There were some positives but a lot of negatives we have to clean up. It starts today.”

David Price paternity leave: Boston Red Sox still hopeful lefty will start Sunday night vs. Yankees

Chris Cotillo

The Red Sox are hopeful left-hander David Price will return from paternity leave in time to make his start Sunday night at Yankee Stadium.

Price was placed on the paternity list before Friday’s game after his wife, Tiffany, had the couple’s second child Thursday. League rules stipulate Price must a minimum of one game and a maximum of three games on the paternity list, so he’s eligible to return for his scheduled start on Sunday Night Baseball.

“Hopefully, (he can pitch),” manager Alex Cora said. “He can be on the list for a maximum of three days. Hopefully, he can be there with us.”

Coincidentally, the Yankees’ scheduled starter for Sunday, lefty J.A. Happ, was also placed on the paternity list Friday. Happ will make his start in the series finale, according to Yankees manager Aaron Boone.

Eduardo Rodriguez will start Friday night before Chris Sale (Game 1) and Brian Johnson (Game 2) take the mound in a doubleheader Saturday for the Sox. Boston will have to make a series of roster moves over the weekend to activate Johnson (likely as the 26th man for the doubleheader) and bring back Price.

Righty Josh Smith and infielder Marco Hernandez joined the team from Pawtucket on Friday. Both players are likely to be sent back down over the weekend to make room for Johnson and Price.

Heath Hembree injury: Red Sox reliever placed on injured list (elbow); righty Josh Smith called up

Chirs Cotillo

The Red Sox placed reliever Heath Hembree on the 10-day injured list with right lateral elbow inflammation, the team announced Friday. Alex Speier of the Boston Globe first reported the move.

Boston called up right-hander Josh Smith to take Hembree’s spot ahead of a four-game series at Yankee Stadium. The Sox will also add a 26th man for Saturday’s doubleheader and will activate lefty Brian Johnson to start one of the games.

Hembree spent three weeks on the IL with a right elbow extensor strain from June 14 to July 4 after experiencing forearm tightness while warming up in the bullpen June 13. Despite repeated assurances from manager Alex Cora that the righty is healthy, he has not been himself since being activated and has allowed 10 runs (nine earned) on 14 hits in nine innings over 12 appearances.

Hembree allowed a run on two hits in Thursday’s loss to the Rays while experiencing diminished velocity, averaging 92.9 mph with his fastball after sitting 94-95 mph for most of the first four months. That has been a an issue for Hembree since returning, as he averaged just 93.06 mph with his fastball in July, according to Brooks Baseball.

Hembree was one of the Sox’ most important relievers for a long stretch, posting a 0.59 ERA while hitters hit .115 against him in 18 appearances from April 29 to June 10. He has fallen out of favor with his July performance as other options-- like Nathan Eovaldi, Darwinzon Hernandez and Josh Taylor-- have emerged in high leverage situations.

Smith owns a 5.40 ERA in 18 1/3 innings for the Sox this year.

* The Lawrence Eagle Tribune

Murky team meeting talk a rare communication breakdown with Alex Cora

Chris Mason

So articulate in his second language that he served as an ESPN analyst, Cora’s ability to get through to people is one of his strongest qualities. It helped land him this gig managing the Red Sox and his players love him for it.

Cora’s reasoning is always clear. He can rib guys in English or Spanish, and he embodies the transparent- and-accountable mantra he demands.

That’s what makes the last 48 hours so head-scratching.

To borrow a phrase from the warden in Cool Hand Luke, “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”

It all stems from a team meeting that didn’t happen. Or maybe it did? But probably didn’t.

Before Thursday’s loss to the Rays, Cora spoke about the need for sit down with his players following a string of bad losses and

“I’ll make it up (Thursday night) on the way to New York,” Cora said. “But I think it’s important, not because of what people think, it’s just what’s coming now. This is the reality of where we’re at. They know, but it’s just a reminder, and we do that most of the time,but probably in a different setup.”

Makes sense given the way the Sox were dropping games to the Rays.

How common are meetings like this?

“Not common at all,” Cora said on Thursday. “I mean, we meet on a daily basis to go over pitchers and I use that sometimes to send a message like we need to do this better, or we’re doing this great, just keep going. Not too often.”

That checks out.

Friday afternoon is where the brain freeze begins.

During his pregame press conference at Yankee Stadium, Cora was asked whether he’d held the meeting.

“Nah, nah,” Cora said. “We always talk. The way I said it, yeah it sounded that way, but we always address stuff during the day. It can be in the food room, in the hitters’ meeting, pitchers’ meeting. We always try to find something positive we’re doing, or if we’re not doing something right, just address it. We do it on a daily basis. The way I said it was out of proportion.

“First of all, if we’re going to have a team meeting, you guys are going to be the last people to know about it,” Cora continued. “And second, we communicate with the players on a daily basis. Different places. It can be at breakfast in the morning or lunch or in the clubhouse, the bus. That’s the way I operate.”

But 24 hours earlier the manager made a point to say it was important to hold this session in a different setting.

Cora was asked whether there was going to be a meeting but he changed his mind. Or was he just kidding? “All of the above,” Cora replied.

And the brain freeze intensifies.

So at one point they were going to have a meeting? And now they aren’t?

“What I said two days ago is we might address where we’re at after the trading deadline,” Cora answered.

“Somebody asked me about the mood in the clubhouse and if they were down because we didn’t add somebody that day. I said we might address it, we might not, I might talk to the guys about where we’re at. They know where we’re at. Then somebody asked me (Thursday) about the meeting and I said I might do it (Friday), I might not. And now...”

So why the change of heart?

“I’ll do it on a daily basis,” Cora responded. “It’s just not a close-door meeting. It’s not like let’s close doors and let me go at it.”

Does he think Dombrowski’s dead deadline had anything to do with the losses to the Rays?

“No,” Cora said. “I just think we didn’t execute pitches.”

With that he delved into a breakdown of the Tampa Bay losses.

There was still no clarity on why the importance of a meeting had been zapped in 24 hours. Or maybe it was never important to begin with.

Got it?

Five Takes: Red Sox continue to free fall with fifth straight loss

Chris Mason

The Red Sox are following their best week of the season with their worst.

They’ve has dropped a season-high five straight games — their longest losing streak since 2015 — and fell to the Yankees last night, 4-2.

Trailing New York by 11.5 games, the Sox can kiss any chance of winning a fourth straight AL East title goodbye, and they’ve fallen four back the Wild Card race, too.

Here are five takes from a remarkably quick evening at Yankee Stadium:

1. Bats go cold for once After a two-run first inning the Red Sox couldn’t get anything going against New York pitching.

James Paxton pitched like the Yankees hoped he would when they dealt for him last offseason, allowing two hits over six innings of work, and the big-money relievers did their jobs.

The three-headed monster at the top of the Boston batting order — Mookie Betts, Rafael Devers, and Xander Bogaerts — went a combined 0 for 11, and as a team the Sox wound up with just three hits. 2. E-Rod gives them a chance Eduardo Rodriguez’s evening couldn’t have started any uglier. He gave up a first-inning grand slam to Gleyber Torres, but the lefty settled in after that.

In his 5 2/3 scoreless innings that followed the first, Rodriguez worked around a season-high six walks to keep his team in striking distance. Getting deep in the ballgame was also particularly meaningful ahead of today’s double-header, and Rodriguez steered out of his skid to get into the seventh inning.

Would Rodriguez have been able to rebound like that last season?

“To be honest with you, no,” Cora said. “I think he’s in a great spot. Probably last year he would have put his head down, and it was going to be a short one. Now, he just kept working, kept making pitches, made adjustments, and he gave us what he did.

“His stuff was really good. His command for the first three hitters was off. And it’s too bad, because he actually pitched a pretty good game.”

Remarkably, Rodriguez now leads the team with 135 1/3 innings

3. J.D. goes deep J.D. Martinez’s season of Yankee killing continued, as he was the only Red Sox hitter to do any damage against Paxton.

In the first inning, Martinez caught a cutter on the inside corner and laced it into the left-field stands, a rare pulled home run that gave the Red Sox an early 2-0 lead. It was Martinez’s sixth of the year against New York, most any Sox player has homered against them since David Ortiz also had six in 2016.

4. Devers flashes the leather One of the most unexpected stories of the season has been Rafael Devers’ glove.

A defensive wild card in his first two seasons, the 22-year-old third baseman has turned the corner in a big way. Devers made a terrific backhanded play in the sixth inning, ranging down the line to his right and then firing a rocket off from the outfield grass to steal a hit from Gio Urshela, and has been remarkably steady since the start of May.

5. AC is OK with this one Though the losses are starting to pile up, Cora was all right with last night’s.

“Honestly, I’m not frustrated today,” he said. “I was more frustrated with the way we played against Tampa. There’s games that, hey, you’re going to get beat like that. The guy on the mound is going to do a good job. I think our guy was outstanding. It was just a good baseball game. It happens.”

* RedSox.com

Rodriguez recovers after rude welcome in Bronx

Sarah Langs

When Eduardo Rodriguez allowed a first-inning grand slam to Gleyber Torres on Friday at Yankee Stadium, it did not appear that the Red Sox lefty was long for the game. After a single followed the slam, Rodriguez induced a double play, and proceeded to not allow another run for the rest of his outing.

On a night when the Red Sox sorely needed length from their starter, heading into a Saturday doubleheader and having just placed a reliever on the injured list, Rodriguez delivered, despite the four runs allowed. The Yankees won, 4-2.

"Struggled with command in the first inning. After that, he was outstanding," Red Sox manager Alex Cora said.

Ultimately, Rodriguez pitched 6 2/3 innings, striking out eight and walking six. Not a line to write home about, but one that helped set his team up for the rest of this series.

Rodriguez became the first Red Sox pitcher with at least six walks and eight or more strikeouts in an outing since Pedro Martinez on April 22, 2003. If anything, that shows how infrequent it is for a pitcher with that kind of location issues to remain in the game. But, Rodriguez did.

Asked if this outing was a sign of Rodriguez's ongoing maturation, and if he would have settled down in the same way last year, Cora cited that there's been a transformation.

"I think he's in a great spot," Cora said. "Last year, he would've just put his head down and it was going to be a short one. Now, he just kept working, kept making pitches, made adjustments. ... His stuff was really good. His command, for the first three hitters, it was off. Too bad, because he actually pitched a very good game."

Despite settling down and keeping his team in it, Rodriguez felt he let his team down.

"I failed on my part," he said. "Give up those four runs, they score two runs for me, and I fail on my part."

Cora noted that the theme of a rough first inning and then settling down was true on both sides -- Yankees starter James Paxton allowed a two-run home run to J.D. Martinez in the first, but, like Rodriguez, did not allow any further damage.

"I thought the game was going to be 13-2 [after the first inning]," Cora said. "It's a game of adjustments, and they made their adjustments. Eduardo did. And it was a great pitched ballgame the rest of the night."

Though it's an inopportune time for such a game, as it extended the Red Sox losing streak to five games, Cora viewed the game more as an isolated day, pointing out the differences between the series against the Rays and this game.

"I'm not frustrated today. I was more frustrated with the way we played in Tampa," he said. "It was just a good baseball game. It happens."

Hembree returns to IL with elbow inflammation

Sarah Langs

The Red Sox placed right-hander Heath Hembree on the injured list with right lateral elbow inflammation Friday, recalling righty Josh A. Smith from Triple-A Pawtucket in his place.

It's Hembree's second IL stint this season with a right elbow injury. He was out from mid-June until July 4 with an extensor elbow strain. In nine innings since returning from that first stint, Hembree allowed nine earned runs (10 total), including three home runs.

Hembree pitched an inning on Thursday, allowing a solo home run to Austin Meadows, as well as a single and a walk.

"It's the same thing as last time [on the IL]," Hembree said.

Hembree said he had an MRI on the elbow, which came back clean, but said that his pain never fully disappeared when he returned from the injured list the first time.

"I can't say it was ever fully completely gone. It was there, but I felt like I was good enough to pitch," he said.

"We're concerned," manager Alex Cora said. "We kept talking about his fastball, and people were talking about velocity, and I kept talking about location, where the fastball was. You can see, Heath is a guy that when he's good, he can locate that fastball in the zone. He wasn't able to do that yesterday."

Hembree said he hopes to return this season and doesn't see this as a season-ending injury.

"Hopefully this is something that is not long term," his manager echoed. "But we have to be careful. When he came back, we thought it wasn't going to happen again, that he was fine. And look what happened now."

Price on paternity list The Red Sox also placed David Price, who is scheduled to start Sunday night's game, on the paternity list and recalled Marco Hernandez from Triple-A. Price joins his counterpart among Sunday's scheduled starters, J.A. Happ of the Yankees, on the paternity list -- Happ was also placed on that list today.

Cora said he still hopes that Price will still be able to start Sunday's game.

* WEEI.com

David Price goes on paternity leave list; Marco Hernandez called up

Rob Bradford

The Red Sox placed David Price on the paternity leave list, recalling Marco Hernandez to take his place on the 25-man roster.

By Major League Baseball rules a player placed on the paternity leave list must miss the next game but no more than three games. Price is scheduled to start the fourth game of the Red Sox' series at Yankee Stadium, which is slated for Sunday night.

Hernandez has been playing very well for Triple-A Pawtucket since his recent demotion, going 18 for his last 35. In 27 games for the Red Sox he hit .339 with an .859 OPS, having last played in the majors on July 22.

Andrew Cashner's awfulness is reminder Dave Dombrowski has made moves this year –– they've just all been bad

Alex Reimer

Dave Dombrowski makes sure to stress he didn’t actually stand pat the trade deadline. Several times over the last week, the now-embattled president of baseball operations –– which is funny to say, considering he was the chief architect of last season’s World Series winning juggernaut –– has pointed out the team actually did make a deadline move, picking up starter Andrew Cashner from the Orioles three weeks ago.

“But, you know, we didn’t make a trade on the trading deadline day last year,” Dombrowski told reporters Wednesday. “We did get Cashner already, so it’s not like we haven’t done something to help our ball club.”

While it is true the Red Sox did acquire Cashner for two 17-year-old kids, he hasn’t exactly helped their fortunes. The veteran righty is 1-3 with a ghastly 7.33 ERA in four starts here, including Thursday’s seven- run shellacking against the Rays. The second inning was Cashner’s worst: he loaded the bases, walking in a run, allowed another run to score after a cross-up with Sandy Leon, and surrendered a scorching RBI double to Tommy Pham.

As team president Sam Kennedy pointed out Thursday on the Greg Hill Show, the Red Sox’ high-priced starting rotation has been the most disappointing group on this disappointing team. For $88 million, which is less than the Rays are paying their entire roster, Sox starters have posted a 4.88 ERA, good for seventh in the league. The staff has allowed 32 runs over this four-game losing streak and 570 overall –– which amounts to an average of 5.2 per game.

It’s hard to pin the collective failure of the rotation on Dombrowski. Chris Sale and are responsible for their lackluster summers, with the latter righty turning in one of the worst seasons in franchise history. He is John Lackey circa 2011, without the surliness and in-game fried chicken.

But Dombrowski is the one who opted to allocate $68 million towards Nathan Eovaldi, who started four games in April before heading to the Injured List. We were told last month Eovaldi was returning early to serve as the club’s savior in the undermanned bullpen, only to see him pitch four times, and give up five runs in 3.2 unimpressive innings.

Weeks before the deadline, John Henry told WEEI’s Rob Bradford he wasn’t sure how much more money he wanted to sink into the team this season. The Red Sox are right up against the $246 million luxury tax, and would pay 75 percent for every dollar over that figure, in addition to dropping 10 spots in the draft.

It’s fair to quibble at Henry’s apparent apprehension for surpassing the luxury tax, but bemoaning the principle owner for being cheap rings hollow. The Red Sox have sported a top-five payroll in 17 of the last 18 seasons. They have the highest payroll in baseball for the second straight year.

Dombrowski was given more than enough money to construct a winning team. He just opted to spend roughly $75 million on retaining World Series heroes Eovaldi and . At least some of that money would’ve been far better spent on Adam Ottavino, who inked a three-year, $27 million deal with the Yankees over the winter.

And therein lies the toughest part about the Red Sox’ deadline inaction. Dombrowski admitted he probably would’ve been more aggressive if the team was closer to first place. But his utter failure to construct a bullpen is the biggest reason why Boston is in this hole. Dombrowski may not have had the expendable prospects to land a game-changing arm, but if he actually replaced Craig Kimbrel and Joe Kelly, the issue would be irrelevant.

The nearly $70 million spent on Eovaldi could’ve gone towards bringing in another reliever and more durable starter. Instead, the Red Sox are left counting on to return from Triple-A, and Cashner, he with the lifetime record of 56-85, to add some stability to the flailing back end of the rotation.

Dombrowski cannot control the climate of the midseason trade market. Maybe teams were trying to fleece the prospect-starved Red Sox, as MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand suggests. But he is completely responsible for the moves that got the Red Sox here. He chose the wrong guys, from Eovaldi to Cashner.

* NBC Sports Boston

Going, going, gone? Red Sox in danger of losing every single one of us by September

John Tomase

The will to care about the 2019 Red Sox is slipping away as inexorably as a toddler's last lead-lidded blink before bedtime.

However encouraged Red Sox fans felt last weekend after watching their team take five of six from the Rays and Yankees, they're in grave danger of tumbling over the precipice and into an abyss of apathy.

Friday night brought more misery in the form of a perfunctory 4-2 loss to the Yankees that included one inning of action and eight innings of inevitability. The Red Sox raced to a 2-0 lead, watched Eduardo Rodriguez give it right back with a first-inning grand slam and that was the end of that.

Like one of those videos of slow-motion destruction when a car loses its brakes on an icy hill and just casually drifts into every mailbox, tree, and Toyota Celica until slamming into a parked dump truck, it feels like the Red Sox have begun their slide to irrelevance and there's nothing we can do to stop it except watch and hope no one gets hurt.

The team's fifth loss in a row just reinforced the notion that when the story of this season is written -- not that anyone will necessarily care to read it -- the tipping point will end up being the July 31 trade deadline and the too-honest press conference Dave Dombrowski conducted in its actionless aftermath.

If the jaws of fans and media dropped when he admitted that the Red Sox weren't close enough to contention to sacrifice pieces of the future for short-term fixes, imagine the reaction of the players. They had basically just been told they were on their own.

The ensuing uneasiness caused manager Alex Cora to make a rare public misstep of his own, when he said he'd be calling a meeting to address the final two months and the challenge that awaits. The meeting was news to his players, who still knew nothing of it on Friday afternoon beyond what they'd read in the media, which led to Cora backtracking more purposefully than Danny Torrance in The Shining and sounding considerably frazzled in the process.

Asked whether he was joking or had changed his mind, Cora said, "All of the above," and then laughed uncomfortably. He tried to explain that he had misspoken and didn't mean to imply he had called a formal meeting, but PR damage done.

Not that it really matters. Now that we know with 1,000 percent certainty that help isn't coming, it's hard to envision the 180 that would be required to salvage their season. What you see is what you get, and what we've seen to this point is hardly worth getting excited about.

Price goes on paternity leave, will he start Sunday? And so, we dutifully chronicle a march to futility, just as we did in lost-cause seasons like 2006 and 2010, when the Sox simply never kicked it into gear. Both of those seasons ended shy of the playoffs, and it's worth noting that the Red Sox are now closer to the eighth-place Angels in the wild-card chase (three games) than to the Rays, whom they trail by four games.

That is not a recipe for an action-packed stretch run, and that's bad news for the marketing folks who care about buzz and virality. With the Patriots beginning the defense of yet another Super Bowl title next month and the Celtics and Bruins preparing for training camp, the Red Sox are in danger of being swallowed whole. Eyeballs and attention must be constantly earned in this City of Champions, and if the Red Sox aren't careful, they'll just be playing out the string.

Last year's title has never felt so distant. It's a new year, and it's slipping through our fingers like the last sands of summer.

Heath Hembree not giving up on pitching again in 2019 after going on IL

John Tomase

This time, Heath Hembree will wait until he's healthy before rejoining the Red Sox.

The right-handed reliever, who emerged as one of Alex Cora's most trusted arms in May before injuring his elbow in early June, was placed on the injured list on Friday after an ineffective outing vs. the Rays.

Hembree was diagnosed with lateral inflammation in his right elbow. Before the series opener at Yankee Stadium, he explained why he simply couldn't pitch through the injury any longer.

"It's the same thing as last time," he said. "I felt like I felt good enough to pitch, it's just something I'd feel good one day, wasn't really able to recover and bounce back and feel like my normal self. It wasn't really worth pushing anymore, let's get it healthy."

Hembree has basically produced three distinct seasons this year. He struggled to a 4.61 ERA in April while throwing too many sliders at the expense of his 95 mph fastball. From May 1 to June 10, he allowed only one run in 17 games (0.60 ERA) while limiting opponents to a .118 average.

But since returning on July 5, Hembree hadn't looked the same. He posted a 9.00 ERA in 12 appearances while allowing opponents to hit .350.

"I can't say it was ever fully completely gone," Hembree said of his injury. "It was there, but I felt like I was good enough to pitch. I would throw one game, and the next morning it was a little bit crankier than the day before. It was just something I was trying to grind through and it just came to a point where it really wasn't worth it anymore."

The last straw was Thursday night against the Rays, when he allowed two hits, a walk, and a home run in a 9-4 loss.

"I think last night, everybody kind of knew," he said. "I was grinding. I was struggling. I came out, met with the trainers, saw the doc last night, and made a decision."

Hembree said an MRI revealed no ligament damage and added that he expects to pitch again in 2019.

"I'm definitely expecting to be back this season," he said. "Just not sure if it's one week, two weeks, three weeks. This time I want to make sure it's completely gone. I want to make sure that there are no symptoms of what I had previously. This time I want to try to do it the right way."

Alex Cora backtracks from holding team meeting in New York, offers muddy explanation

John Tomase

Let's just call it the team meeting that wasn't.

On Wednesday, the trade deadline passed without the Red Sox making a move. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski then very frankly acknowledged that he would've been more inclined to deal if the Red Sox were closer to first place.

Cora mentioned on Thursday he'd call a team meeting in New York to make sure everyone knew the stakes the rest of the season. Then he rethought the meeting after the Red Sox were swept by the Rays later that night.

On Friday in New York, he sounded flustered while describing his intentions, laughing nervously when asked if had changed his mind or was just kidding.

"All of the above," Cora said. "What I said two days ago is we might address where we're at after the trading deadline. Somebody asked me about the mood in the clubhouse and if they were down because we didn't add somebody that day. I said we might address it, we might not, I might talk to the guys about where we're at. They know where we're at. Then somebody asked me yesterday about the meeting and I said I might do it tomorrow, I might not. And now . . ."

On Thursday, Cora had said that calling such a meeting was "not common at all." On Friday, he clarified that what he had made sound like a formal meeting was actually nothing more than his normal day-to-day interactions.

"We always talk," he said. "The way I said it, yeah it sounded that way, but we always address stuff during the day. It can be in the food room, in the hitters' meeting, pitchers' meeting. We always try to find something positive we're doing, or if we're not doing something right, just address it. We do it on a daily basis. The way I said it was out of proportion.

"First of all, if we're going to have a team meeting, you guys are going to be the last people to know about it. And second, we communicate with the players on a daily basis. Different places. It can be at breakfast in the morning or lunch or in the clubhouse, the bus. That's the way I operate."

As for the over-arching issue -- did the lack of action at the trade deadline cause the team to play poorly on Wednesday and Thursday while Tampa was finishing a sweep? -- Cora shook his head.

"No. I just think we didn't execute pitches," he said. "Offensively we did a good job throughout the series against the Rays. If you look back, that first game we had bases loaded, two outs, with our best hitter at the plate. (Rafael Devers) hit a fly ball to left, we don't cash in. We had Christian [Vazquez] first and third, two outs, and hanging slider, and he missed it. If we put a good swing there and we score, probably the narrative would be different, like these guys are relentless and they don't care what happened on July 31 and now we go. But we didn't do it, so the narrative is going to be like, they're down and all that. But I don't think it's that."

* BostonSportsJournal.com

Three thoughts as the Red Sox continue to spiral downward

Sean McAdam

1. Walks are haunting Red Sox starters.

On Thursday against the Tampa Bay Rays, Andrew Cashner issued five walks, tying his season-high. On Friday in New York, it was more of the same as Eduardo Rodriguez issued a season-high six, including two in the first inning, helping to set the stage for a grand slam by Gleyber Torres.

Even Chris Sale, whose loss last Sunday night against the Yankees helped kick off this losing streak, allowed three walks in just 5.1 innings. Know how many times Sale issued at least three walks a year ago? Just four times in 27 starts.

It’s asking for trouble against any lineup to put men on base. Against an offense like Tampa Bay, sometimes you can get away with extra baserunners. But facing a team like the Yankees, in a small ballpark where the long ball is always a threat, it’s asking for trouble.

And while Rodriguez didn’t allow any runs after the first Friday night, he kept tempting fate, with at least one walk in four of the next five innings.

2. Shutdown innings have been few and far between.

Again, Cashner was guilty of this Thursday. After a solo homer from Xander Bogaerts in the fifth brought the Red Sox to within a run of the Rays, Cashner blew up in the sixth, allowing three more runs and allowing Tampa Bay to regain any momentum they might have lost with the homer in the previous inning.

The same problem reared its head Friday night in the series opener against the Yankees. A two-run homer by J.D. Martinez gave the Red Sox a quick 2-0 lead four batters into the game and surely rocked planted a seed of doubt with James Paxton, who was clubbed for seven runs last week by this same Sox team.

But in the bottom of the inning, Rodriguez not only cracked the door open for the Yankees — he held it wide open, allowing a leadoff single and then two straight walks to fill the bases. Immediately, Rodriguez found himself pitching out of the stretch as the Yankee Stadium crowd became a factor.

Sure enough, Rodriguez missed location with his first pitch to Gleyber Torres, who hit a grand slam to left. The Red Sox 2-0 lead didn’t last more than 10 or so minutes and the Sox found themselves (unsuccessfully) playing from behind for the rest of the night.

The issue has been a common thread throughout this past week. That, and the inability of Red Sox’ starters to protect leads they’ve been given. On Tuesday night, David Price was given an early 3-0 lead matched against Charlie Morton, but proceeded to allow a run in the third and three more in the fifth, forced from the game.

One thing’s clear: as Alex Cora reminds us periodically that his team has been consistently inconsistent, no facet of the team more clearly embodies that than the starting rotation.

3. Red Sox haven’t responded to the schedule.

Nearly two weeks ago, the Red Sox embarked on the most important and difficult stretch of their season, with 14 straight games exclusively against the Rays and Yankees.

The thought was that the Sox needed to win nine or 10 of those to pick up some ground in the division and keep themselves in the middle of the wild card race.

It began well enough with two-of-three in Tampa Bay and three straight against New York. Since then? It’s been an unmitigated disaster, with five straight losses.

That stretch has been so bad that the Sox now need to win the remaining three games of this series in New York to merely emerge with a winning record from that 14-game run. And given how they’re going, what are the odds of that happening?

Maybe the Red Sox didn’t have as many issues with effort and execution as they did Thursday night. But facing a pitcher whom they had beaten up a week ago tonight, they managed a grand total of three hits all night.

Despite that, Cora seemed strangely sanguine about the results.

“Honestly, I’m not frustrated today,” said Cora postgame. “I was more frustrated with the way we played against Tampa. There’s games that, hey, you’re going to get beat like that. … It was just a good baseball game.”

Three hits — two after the first inning — constitutes a “good baseball game?”

While Cora has made it a hallmark of his tenure not to show panic or lose his cool, some urgency from him might be welcome here.

In a season that is rapidly slipping away, atta-boys don’t seem like the proper response.

BSJ Game Report: Yankees 4, Red Sox 2 – First inning slam sends Sox to fifth straight loss

Sean McAdam

Rodriguez recovers after first, but it’s too late: Eduardo Rodriguez invited trouble in the first inning when he filled the bases (two reached on walks) then made a first-pitch mistake to Gleyber Torres, who hammered it for a grand slam. Rodriguez continued to battle his control for the rest of the night, issuing a season-high six walks, though he was able to overcome them after the first with the help of two double plays. Rodriguez got tougher and better as the game progressed, allowing only just two hits — one an infield single — after the first inning. “He just kept working, making pitches and made and some adjustments and give us what he did,” Alex Cora said of Rodriguez. But the damage had been done. Coming into the game, Rodriguez who had won his last five starts, had received the most run support of any starter in the American League, but the bats weren’t there for him tonight.

Offense almost non-existent: If you didn’t tune in from the very beginning of the game, it would have been easy to miss any excitement generated by the Red Sox’ offense. After two outs, Xander Bogaerts drew a walk and J.D. Martinez took a cutter on the inner half and drove it out for a quick 2-0 lead. But that was it. Over the next eighth innings, the Sox had just two more hits — a single from Andrew Benintendi in the fourth and a single to center by Christian Vazquez in the seventh. They had just one baserunner in scoring position, mostly handcuffed by James Paxton, the same pitcher they beat up for seven runs on nine hits in just four innings a week ago tonight. When Paxton left after six and the Yankees went to their bullpen, it didn’t get any better for the Sox. It’s hard to believe that this same lineup scored 44 runs in four games against the Yankees last weekend at Fenway.

Eovaldi looks improved: To get him some work, the Red Sox turned to Nathan Eovaldi in the eighth inning for his fifth appearance out of the bullpen. Pitching with the Sox trailing by two, Eovaldi attacked hitters and consistently got ahead, retiring in order on a groundout, a strikeout and a flyout. He showed good life on his fastball, hitting 99 mph several times, and also demonstrated good command of his secondary pitches. Perhaps most impressively, he also was, for a change, efficient, needing just 12 pitches to record the three outs. In contrast, he had thrown 18 or more pitches in each of his first four outings in relief, including one in which he needed 36 pitches to get through a single inning.

TURNING POINT

After the first inning, the Red Sox had only one inning in which they put multiple runners on base. That came in the fourth, when, with one out, J.D. Martinez drew a walk and Andrew Benintendi followed with a single. But that threat quickly was turned back as James Paxton got a flyout and groundout and the Sox never again threatened.

ONE UP

J.D. Martinez: Just a handful of pitches into the game, Martinez gave the Sox a quick 2-0 lead with a homer his fourth homer in the last seven games.

ONE DOWN

Mookie Betts: Though he hit the ball hard once, driving a ball to the warning track in right-center, Betts was hitless in four plate appearances and unable to generate any offense at the top of the Red Sox’ lineup.

QUOTE OF NOTE

“In the first inning, I thought it was going to be 13-12. But both (starting) pitchers did an outstanding job and that big swing (by Torres) put us in a bad spot.” Alex Cora.

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING

The Red Sox’ five-game losing streak is the longest since July of 2015. The Yankees are 5-1 against the Sox at home this season. Christian Vazquez has thrown out 39 percent of would-be base-stealers this season. Xander Bogaerts saw his seven-game hitting streak come to an end. UP NEXT

The Red Sox and Yankees will play a doubleheader Saturday with LHP Chris Sale (5-10, 4.26) matched up against RHP Domingo German (13-2, 4.08) at 1:05 and LHP Brian Johnson (1-1, 6.43) facing TBA at 7:05 p.m.

* The Athletic

Eventually, one of these losses will be the final straw for Red Sox

Chad Jennings

At some point, the end will come for these Red Sox. The question is whether we’ll recognize when it does — and whether it’s happening at this very moment.

The latest free fall continued Friday night at Yankee Stadium, where Eduardo Rodriguez had one bad inning, the Red Sox offense had one good inning, and the Yankees won 4-2 to push the Sox 11 1/2 games out of first place. It’s their largest deficit of the year. Even the second wild-card spot is now four games away, and there’s no longer any question of trade deadline reinforcements. There will be none.

The Red Sox have a championship offense with a fatally flawed pitching staff, and it’s getting harder and harder to see what Alex Cora, Dave Dombrowski and John Henry claim to see. It’s getting harder to see this team as a legitimate contender. One week ago, the Red Sox seemed to be playing well. Today, they’re at a new low point. And far too often, that seems to be the daily takeaway.

“Honestly, I’m not frustrated today,” Cora said. “I was more frustrated with the way we played against Tampa. There’s games that, hey, you’re going to get beat like that. The guy on the mound is going to do a good job. I think our guy was outstanding. It was just a good baseball game. It happens.”

It’s true: Friday was a pretty good baseball game. Rodriguez had one bad inning, and it was the first, when he walked two and gave up a grand slam to Gleyber Torres. It wasn’t even a terrible pitch — it was in, off the plate — but Rodriguez meant to throw it up, missed his spot, and Torres sent it out to left field.

J.D. Martinez homered for the sixth time in 12 games against the Yankees this season, Rafael Devers made a brilliant play at third base, and Rodriguez settled in to allow no more runs while pitching 6 2/3, but it didn’t matter. After the Martinez home run in the first inning, the Red Sox went 2-for-27 with two walks to finish the game. Mookie Betts was 0-for-4 atop the lineup. They were retired in order five times. They’ve now lost five in a row.

Friday should have been a game to dismiss. Offense is the least of Boston’s worries, and getting shut down once in a while shouldn’t be a big deal. In the grand scheme of things, Rodriguez’s ability to make an adjustment after that sloppy first inning was a significant silver lining. But it did nothing to help in the standings, and so it did nothing to help this team.

“Probably last year he would have put his head down, and it was going to be a short one,” Cora said. “Now, he just kept working, kept making pitches, made adjustments, and he gave us what he did. His stuff was really good.”

If the Red Sox have reached the point of such silver linings, then they’ve reached the point of irrelevance. Teams with nothing to play for look at a game like this and see what it means for Rodriguez in the future. They think about the encouraging growth he’s shown this season and wonder how it might play next year. They move on quickly because there’s nothing to play for in the present.

The Red Sox have not reached that point. At least, that’s the idea. Player for player, their roster still seems more capable than either of the teams they’re chasing for the second wild card, and if they can sneak into that playoff spot — the division is fully into pipe-dream territory — they can roll the dice for one game and hope for the best. It’s not a best-case scenario, but the best-case scenario is long gone.

But as the losses mount, even the wild card becomes harder and harder, and with 51 games left, there’s just not much time. They’re four games behind the Rays for the second wild card, with the Athletics in between, and that’s not a small gap.

Up next is a day-night doubleheader, and the potential devastation of being swept by the Yankees seems far more meaningful than any vague possibility of winning both. Every loss kicks the Red Sox lower and lower. Every win only marginally keeps their heads above water.

Maybe they have another run in them. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that they were playing well. Go back one week and it seemed to be the moment the Red Sox broke out of their shell and made a run. But they’ve since lost and lost and lost and lost and lost. Eventually, one of those losses will be the final straw.

* The New York Daily News

James Paxton bounces back from last meltdown

Kristie Ackert

That was the pitcher the Yankees were looking for all along. In an almost 180-degree turnaround from last weekend, James Paxton handled the Red Sox Friday night like an ace and with the help of a Gleyber Torres grand slam, beat Boston 4-2 at the Stadium.

The Yankees (69-39) won their second straight game and third in the last six games. They took their second straight against the Red Sox (59-52), who took three out of four in Boston last weekend. With the Rays having Friday night off, the Yankees widened their lead in the American League East to 7.5 games. The knocked the Red Sox to 11.5 games back.

While the Astros added another ace to their rotation Yankees GM Brian Cashman struck out at the trade deadline. If Paxton pitches like he did on Friday night and Luis Severino returns from a season-long injury, Cashman’s swing-and-miss at the deadline could be forgotten.

“We’re really confident in the guys in this room. We’ve also got guys coming back that’ll be like making trades. We’ve got Severino hoping to get back before the end of the season, Dellin (Betances) as well. Giancarlo (Stanton), there’s a lot of guys that are going to be coming back here and making a big difference,” Paxton said. “I think that the guys in this room can get it done. We’re a talented group and very motivated. I have full confidence in the guys in this room.”

Torres certainly gave the Yankees something to look forward to. The 22-year-old hit his second grand slam of his young career — and the second of the season. He is the third youngest Yankee to hit two grand slams in a season, behind Yogi Berra in 1947 and Mickey Mantle in ‘52, according to YES.

Torres’ grand slam in the first inning also gave Paxton a second chance.

“Huge home run by Gleyber right there, kind of injected some energy into our team and just really got us fired up,” Paxton said.

The 30-year-old lefty responded to getting shelled last weekend in Boston. He allowed a season-high seven runs on nine hits, including a career-high four home runs. Friday night was a different story. He allowed two runs on two hits over six innings. He walked three and struck out six.

Paxton retired the first two batters he faced before walking Xander Bogaerts. He made a mistake with a cutter out over the plate and J.D. Martinez pulled it for a two-run homer to continue his first-inning struggles. Paxton has allowed 24 earned runs, including 11 home runs, in the first inning.

After that, he used a different mix of pitches Friday to keep the Red Sox uncomfortable. He threw his curveball more, he mixed in more changeups and relied less on his fastball. He retired eight straight and then worked around two runners in the fourth and one in the fifth.

“It’s something we talked about, bringing it in a little bit more into games, slowing them down and taking them off the fastball,” Paxton said of mixing in his curveball more. “Just mixing it up a little bit.”

That’s the Paxton the Yankees had hoped they would get when they traded for him last winter. It was the type of pitcher they have been looking for all summer and couldn’t find before the trade deadline. With the Astros getting ace Zack Greinke, Cashman’s failure to land free agent lefties Patrick Corbin last winter or Dallas Keuchel in June, followed by decision to stand pat after a week in which the Yankees pitching got pummeled, looked bad. Friday, however, was a good day for the Yankees pitching.

Not only did they get a reassuring performance from Paxton, but before the game, Boone said that Luis Severino, who has been trying to come back from shoulder and lat injuries, could be on a mound within a week.

“If everything progresses like it should this week, he’ll probably be on the mound Friday when we’re in Toronto,” the Yankees manager said. “He’ll do hopefully some flat ground (work) where he’s executing some pitches and stuff.”

Even after getting over the hurdle of throwing off the mound for the first time, however, Severino would likely be at least three weeks away from being able to pitch in a MLB game.

* The New York Post

No guarantee these Red Sox are playoff-bound

George A. King III

It hasn’t gotten to the point where the funeral directors in Boston can begin preparing Fenway Park for an AL East wake.

No need to reserve New England’s living room from two-to-four and seven-to-nine when it comes to the Red Sox repeating as divisional champs.

Not time to open a cash bar for the bartenders who otherwise get stiffed while people stand around and drink in front of a stiff.

Nevertheless, after getting their lungs ripped out last weekend in Boston and losing three of four to raise questions about their starting rotation not being good enough, the Yankees rebounded Friday night in The Bronx.

That they did it was partially because of James Paxton’s left arm removing some of the sting of not getting a starting pitcher before this past week’s trade deadline when GM Brian Cashman said the prices were too high.

Paxton, who was spanked for seven runs and nine hits (four homers) last Friday night at Fenway, gave up a two-run homer to J.D. Martinez in the first inning and nothing across the next five to help the Yankees to a well-played 4-2 victory that was witnessed by a sold-out crowd of 46,932.

Gleyber Torres crushed a first-inning grand slam off Eduardo Rodriguez and the Yankees’ bullpen — a unit that Cashman also attempted to get help for — chipped in with three scoreless frames.

Maybe in places like the 4th Wall on Tremont or Sullivan’s in Charlestown, self-loathing Red Sox fans believe being 11 ½ lengths back of the AL East-leading Yankees with 51 games remaining, being seven games north of .500 and trailing the second-place Rays by four furlongs is a reason to disbelieve and turn the attention toward securing one of the two AL wild-card bids.

Yet, July turned into August and despite the injuries continuing to mount, the 69-39 Yankees have their hands on the throat of their blood rivals who have dropped a season-high five straight.

The Yankees moved to 30 games above not long after Aaron Boone spoke these words about shortstop Didi Gregorius being out of the lineup with a strain between the ring finger and pinky on the left hand: “We are hoping to avoid an IL situation.’’

What Yankee dodges the IL this year? They have placed 23 players on the IL and used it 27 times so the Red Sox can’t count on injuries bringing the Yankees down.

Nor do the defending World Champions figure to get help from the schedule. When the Red Sox leave The Bronx after Sunday night’s game, the Yankees will face the putrid Orioles and Blue Jays in the following 11 games.

“Obviously what happened in Fenway was easier to swallow since we had a nine-game lead, it gives you breathing room,’’ said Zack Britton, who worked a perfect eighth. “That being said we know what they are capable of doing. They have a really good offense.’’

The live bats the Yankees silenced aren’t enough for the Red Sox to take down the Yankees on their own. Help is needed because injuries aren’t going to sink the Yankees, who might get boosts from Luis Severino and Dellin Betances in areas Cashman felt the asking price was too high. At some point the Yankees hope to get Giancarlo Stanton back, too.

Ordering flowers and draping Fenway in purple might be premature in the first week of August, but the numbers and calendar don’t lie. Last year’s champs are very close to looking at a wild-card ticket to get into the postseason and there is no guarantee that will happen, either.

Red Sox aren’t short confidence even as time is running out

Howie Kussoy

Confidence comes easily in a clubhouse filled with eight All-Stars, two Cy Young winners and an MVP. Confidence comes naturally when you have a core that last year won 108 games — topped by only eight teams ever —and World Series rings.

But confidence can’t stretch the schedule.

Since teasing a long-awaited resurgence when they claimed the first three games of last weekend’s series against the Yankees by a combined score of 38-13, the third-place Red Sox are now in the midst of their longest losing streak in four years, and face their largest AL East deficit since 2015 — 11 ½ games behind their rivals, as well as four games back of the final AL wild-card spot — following their fifth straight loss, 4-2, Friday in The Bronx.

“You can’t look at the big picture. You can’t look at [the deficit] or other teams,” manager Alex Cora said. “I’ve been saying it all along, you have to take care of your business.”

After being swept in three games at home by the Rays, the Red Sox looked ready for their latest version of their biggest series of the season, as J.D. Martinez blasted a first-inning, two-run homer off James Paxton, who had been lit up for seven runs and nine hits at Fenway Park last Friday.

But that momentum — and lead — evaporated in minutes.

Eduardo Rodriguez opened the bottom of the first by allowing the first three runners to reach base — including a pair of walks — and then allowed a grand slam to Gleyber Torres to put Boston behind for good. The Red Sox had 24 more outs to work with, but produced just two more hits, failing to silence the standard “Boston sucks” chants, as their final seven hitters were retired.

“There’s a sense of urgency all the time now,” first baseman Mitch Moreland said before the game. “We know where we’re at. We know what we gotta do. We gotta win games.

“It’s nothing we can’t overcome. We’ve got time. We’ve got some games left. Obviously it’s getting down to crunch time, but we’ve got a good team and we can still do what we need to do.”

Boston still believes there is enough talent, enough time, enough belief that the final 51 games will look different than the previous 111. But just reaching the postseason could be nearly as challenging as last year’s playoff run.

“That experience is good to have, but at this point I don’t know how much that would kind of factor into it,” Moreland said. “I feel like just getting in our foot in the door, giving ourselves an opportunity, that’s where that’s gonna pay off the most, but we’ve gotta take care of business right now and give ourselves that chance.

“We’ve got some ground to make up and we know it. We’ve gotta take care of that part first.”

James Paxton shakes off struggles as Yankees keep Red Sox reeling

Dan Martin

Those three straight knockouts by the Red Sox last week in Boston became more of a distant memory Friday night, as the Yankees opened another four-game series against their rivals with a 4-2 win in front of a sellout crowd in The Bronx.

It was the Yankees’ third win in four games and sent the Red Sox to a season-high fifth straight defeat.

James Paxton recovered from another rough first inning to deliver a solid outing, and the Yankees used a grand slam from Gleyber Torres — also in the first — to open a 7½-game lead in the AL East over second- place Tampa Bay, which was idle, and move 11½ games ahead of Boston.

“I’m not surprised,’’ Aaron Boone said of his team’s ability to bounce back. “No matter what’s happened, they’re not really that affected by a bad night or a bad couple days or, for that matter, a great couple of nights. They expect to go out and win. There’s a lot of comfort in that, when you come to the field knowing you can really play.”

The victory began a stretch of 19 games in 17 days for the Yankees, who are in need of more depth from their starters. Paxton (6-6) was much-improved over his previous two starts, when he gave up 14 runs (11 earned) over a combined 7¹/₃ innings. His previous outing came in Boston, when the Red Sox hit four homers off him.

“I didn’t make as many mistakes,’’ Paxton said of Friday’s start. “And the ones I did make, they didn’t put over the fence.”

The night wasn’t all good for Paxton, whose first-inning struggles continued when he allowed a two-out, two-run homer to J.D. Martinez. Paxton has given up a homer in the first inning of each of his past four starts and his ERA in opening frames this season is 11.36.

But the Yankees didn’t trail for long.

DJ LeMahieu, back after missing four games with a tight groin, led off the bottom of the first against left- hander Eduardo Rodriguez (13-5) with a single, and Aaron Judge and Edwin Encarnacion walked to load the bases with no one out.

Aaron Hicks fouled out before Torres lined a homer into the left-field seats to give the Yankees a two-run lead. The shot snapped a 3-for-22 slide for Torres, who filled in at shortstop for Didi Gregorius, who is nursing a strained finger in his left hand.

Neither team scored after the first, as both Paxton and Rodriguez settled in.

Paxton retired eight straight following Martinez’s home run and eight of the last nine he faced before being pulled after the sixth. He allowed just two runs and a pair of hits in the 100-pitch performance.

The Yankees couldn’t get to Rodriguez again, but it didn’t matter, as Tommy Kahnle tossed a scoreless seventh, Zack Britton did the same in the eighth and Aroldis Chapman finished the job with an easy ninth.

It was a welcome change for Chapman, who had allowed nine runs (eight earned) in 8²/₃ innings in his previous nine outings. Opposing batters had hit him well, with nine hits in that span, but he also had struggled with his control, walking eight batters. “That was good to see,’’ Boone said of Chapman’s outing. “He’s been a little up and down lately with his command. Hopefully this is something that gets him rolling again.”

The win continued a turnaround for both teams, as the Red Sox seemed to be surging up the division last Saturday and the Yankees’ rotation was in the midst of a horrific week.

“It was more a bump in the road,’’ Britton said. “It’s definitely frustrating when you go into Fenway and don’t perform. We needed to perform better and this has been a good step in the right direction.’’

The Yankees’ fortunes began to turn with Sunday night’s win. Then, while they split two games at the Stadium against the Diamondbacks, the Red Sox were swept at home by the Rays and weren’t factors at the trade deadline.

“Look, we’re just trying to rack up wins,’’ Boone said. “Anytime you can rack up a win, especially against a division opponent that is as capable as the Red Sox are, you enjoy those a little more.”

* The Bergen Record

James Paxton rebounds, Gleyber Torres hits grand slam as Yankees beat Red Sox

Robert Aitken Jr.

The Yankees and Red Sox went to both extremes for a time on Friday night.

The rivals showed a glimpse of a slugfest in the first inning, followed by eight innings of a pitcher's duel. It was Gleyber Torres and his grand slam that proved to be the deciding blow as the Yankees held off the Red Sox, 4-2, at Yankee Stadium.

"That's who he has been since he got here," said manager Aaron Boone. "I continue to be proud of him for the continued strides he makes in the little parts of the game that he continues to get better at. He's a guy you want up in that situation."

Torres knocked the first pitch he saw from 13-game winner Eduardo Rodriguez into the seats in left field for a grand slam. The Yankees loaded the bases to begin the home first as DJ LeMahieu led off with a single, followed by walks to Aaron Judge and Edwin Encarnacion.

"I saw bases loaded," said Torres. "I never think about a home run. I just think to put the ball in play and hit it hard. It doesn't matter if it's a home run or a sacrifice."

Yankees starter James Paxton had not been good in the first inning all year long, entering Friday night's game with an earned run average of 11 in the first inning. That number jumped even higher after a two-run home run by J.D. Martinez, giving the Red Sox a quick 2-0 lead.

"It's a little flukey," said Boone. "I thought he threw the snot out of the ball in the first inning. He missed with the slider and instead of a foul ball or a hard out or a base hit, it's a homer. So it's like 'here comes the story again'."

Paxton would settle in after the first, allowing just one hit and two walks across the next five innings to earn the win, his sixth of the season. Paxton threw 100 pitches and struck out six, including two before surrendering the first inning home run, and retired eight of the final nine batters he faced.

"I didn't make as many mistakes,"said Paxton, comparing to his last start against Boston, allowing seven runs in four innings. "The ones I did make, they didn't put over the fence. J.D. hit a pretty good pitch in the first inning. Other than that, I thought I threw the ball pretty well."

"Stuff-wise, I thought he was really good again," said Boone. "I thought the conviction was, again, really good, even coming off of last game. I thought he did a good job of mixing his three pitches and he was really strong."

The normally powerful Yankees offense would muster only three more hits in the rest of the game after taking the lead in the first inning. Gio Urshela singled following the Torres grand slam. Judge led off the third inning with a single for the only other Yankees hit until the seventh inning. In the seventh, LeMahieu struck a two-out double over the head of Mookie Betts, which would take Rodriguez out of the game and force the Red Sox to turn to their bullpen.

The Yankees bullpen, strong all season long and among the best in baseball since the All Star break, allowed only one hit in three . Tommy Kahnle allowed a two out single to Christian Vasquez, but stranded the runner. Zack Britton induced three ground balls to get through the eighth inning. Closer Aroldis Chapman closed the door on the Red Sox for his 28th of the season.

Boston, in need of a good performance while chasing a playoff spot, have now lost five games in a row, all to division opponents, for the first time since an eight-game losing streak in July 2015. The Yankees started that streak with a victory on Sunday night at Fenway Park, followed by a three-game sweep from the Tampa Bay Rays. The Yankees will look to continue that streak tomorrow with a doubleheader against the Red Sox.

* The Newark Star Ledger

Yankees hold off Red Sox, ride James Paxton, Gleyber Torres to win

Brendan Kuty

See Uber’s stock history? Now look at the cost of a Xerox share over the last decade.

That’s the difference between the Yankees and the Red Sox right now.

The disparity only grew more Friday, as the Yankees struck early and hard to push Boston farther out of the playoff picture in a 4-2 win at Yankee Stadium before 46,932 fans.

Neither team scored over the final eight innings.

But the Yankees’ blow in the first frame outmuscled Boston’s, and the Yankees’ arms were able to hold off the Red Sox, who didn’t get any of the help they badly needed at the trade deadline. Yankees stood pat and got criticized, too, as their pitching staff had struggled lately, but starting pitcher James Paxton gave them reason to hope they count on him as they near wrapping up their first division crown since 2012.

What it means

The Yankees (69-39) improved to 7 1/2 games up on the second-place Rays in the American League East. Boston (59-52), in third place, fell to 11 1/2 games back of the Yankees.

The Yankees, coming off losing three of four games at Fenway Park last weekend, improved to 8-4 against their hated rivals this season.

Gleyber grand

Gleyber Torres’ first-inning grand slam put the Yankees ahead for good.

With one out, Torres unloaded on first-pitch fastball from Red Sox starting pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez and put deep into the left-field seats. It was his 21st blast of the season and his second career grand slam. He also hit one July 19 vs. Tampa Bay.

It followed a leadoff single from DJ LeMahieu, who played for the first time in a week, missing time recovering from a slight groin strain. Then Aaron Judge and Edwin Encarnacion drew back-to-back walks before Aaron Hicks popped out to first base, setting the stage for Torres, who has 60 RBI on the season.

Pax-ing out

Paxton’s night started the way so many others have for him this season: Very poorly.

He coughed up a two-run shot to JD Martinez in the first inning. It pushed his first-inning ERA this season to a terrible 11.37 with 11 home runs allowed. That put the Yankees into an immediate 2-0 hole.

He couldn’t have rebounded much better, though. Paxton struck out the six in the next inning wouldn’t give up a run the rest of the night.

The left-hander lasted six innings, striking out six while walking three and allowing two hits. He retired eight straight Red Sox until walking Martinez in the fourth.

Notes

J.A. Happ, who went on the paternity leave Friday, was expected to start Sunday for the Yankees.

Shortstop Didi Gregorius missed the game dealing with a strain on a knuckle on his left hand. He hurt it making a play in Wednesday’s win over the Diamondbacks.

Relievers Tommy Kahnle and Zack Britton threw scoreless seventh and eighth frames, respectively, for the Yankees.

Aroldis Chapman nailed down the easy save.

Next

Saturday, Game 1: Yankees righty Domingo German (13-2, 4.08 ERA) vs. Red Sox lefty Chris Sale (5-10, 4.26 ERA) at 1:05 p.m.

Saturday, Game 2: Yankees TBA vs. Red Sox lefty Brian Johnson (1-1, 6.43 ERA) at 7:05 p.m.

* Associated Press

Torres hits slam, Yankees 3-hit skidding Red Sox 4-2

Once again, the box score for James Paxton looked ugly after three outs. The eye test told Yankees manager Aaron Boone something different.

"I thought he threw the snot out of the ball in the first inning," he said.

Gleyber Torres wiped up Paxton's mess with a grand slam, and the hard-throwing left-hander cruised after that to help New York three-hit the slumping Boston Red Sox in a 4-2 victory Friday night.

Red Sox slugger J.D. Martinez hit a two-run homer during yet another rocky first by Paxton, but Torres bailed him out with his shot off Eduardo Rodriguez (13-5). Paxton (6-6) struck out the side in the second and completed six innings on 100 pitches, allowing two hits and two runs with six strikeouts.

"That was huge to get those four runs, put us back on top," Paxton said. "Try to lock it down from there."

Boston has lost five straight for the first time since 2015 and dropped 11 1/2 games behind first-place New York in the AL East. The Red Sox arrived in the Bronx for this four-game set after standing pat at Wednesday's trade deadline and having been swept over three games by the Rays at Fenway Park. The reigning World Series champions are four games behind Tampa Bay for the final AL wild card.

"Honestly, I'm not frustrated today," manager Alex Cora said. "I was more frustrated with the way we played against Tampa. There's games that you're going to get beat like that."

Yankees relievers Tommy Kahnle and Zack Britton pitched a scoreless inning each, and Aroldis Chapman was perfect in the ninth for his 28th save.

New York earned its major league-leading 35th comeback win and improved to 23-21 when its opponent scores first. The Yankees are the only team in baseball with a winning record in such games.

"We're just trying to rack up wins right now," Boone said.

After striking out Mookie Betts and Rafael Devers to open the game, Paxton walked Xander Bogaerts and allowed Martinez's 24th homer on a hanging cutter. Paxton has given up 11 homers in 19 first innings and has an 11.37 ERA before getting three outs. It was the fifth straight game Paxton allowed a run in the first inning, including when he gave up seven runs in four innings at Fenway Park in his previous outing.

Paxton said "I don't have an answer" for the first-inning woes. Boone called them "fluky."

"Honestly I've been really confident in him," Boone said. "And even coming off last start, I thought we saw so many good things. I thought he came out really aggressive, he just got bit by a really good team when he made a mistake."

Torres was looking for an inside fastball from Rodriguez and got it first pitch, turning on a heater inches off the plate and lining it out for his slam. That came after Rodriguez allowed DJ LeMahieu's leadoff single and walks to Aaron Judge and Edwin Encarnacion. Torres has 21 homers this season.

Both pitchers settled after the noisy first. Rodriguez covered 6 2/3 innings despite allowing a career-high six walks. He struck out eight and gave up five hits and four runs.

"Struggled with command in the first inning, after that it was outstanding," Cora said.

LeMahieu had two hits in his return after missing four games with a strained groin.

Aaron Hicks was 0 for 4 with three strikeouts for New York and is 1 for 22 with 10 punchouts in his past six games. Judge struck out twice and has three hits in his last 29 at-bats.

FATHER'S DAY

Yankees left-hander J.A. Happ and Red Sox lefty David Price -- the projected starters for Sunday's series finale -- were both placed on the paternity list Friday. New York manager Aaron Boone said Happ is expected to return to the club in time to make his start, and Boston's Alex Cora was hopeful that Price would do the same. Players can spend one to three days consecutively on the paternity list.

TRAINER'S ROOM

Red Sox: RHP Heath Hembree was placed on the 10-day IL with right lateral elbow inflammation. Hembree was on the IL from June 14-July 4 with forearm tightness and has struggled with a sluggish fastball and poor location since. ... RHP Josh Smith and INF Marco Hernandez were recalled from Triple- A.

Yankees: OF Brett Gardner was activated from the 10-day IL, utilityman Tyler Wade was sent to Triple-A and LHP Stephen Tarpley was recalled from Triple-A. Gardner was 0 for 3. ... 1B Luke Voit had a cortisone shot to address a sports hernia that landed him on the injured list Wednesday. The Yankees expect to know in a week whether Voit will require surgery. ... SS Didi Gregorius was held out of the lineup with a strained left hand. He rolled over his left wrist fielding a ball Wednesday. Boone was hopeful Gregorius would avoid the IL. ... Boone hopes RHP Luis Severino (rotator cuff inflammation) will throw his first bullpen off a mound next Friday. ... OF Giancarlo Stanton (sprained right knee) has not yet resumed baseball activities.

UP NEXT

The rivals play a split doubleheader Saturday. Yankees RHP Domingo German (13-2, 4.08) will face Red Sox LHP Chris Sale (5-10, 4.26) in the 1:05 p.m. game, and New York will likely use an opener in the 7:05 p.m. game against Boston LHP Brian Johnson (1-1, 6.43).