NOVA DOMINATES; YANKEES TAKE 3 OF 4 IN FENWAY

These Yankee/Red Sox games really take a lot out of me. They’re intense, hard fought battles no matter where the teams are in the standings, and Sunday night’s game was no different. Ivan Nova picked up his 10th win of the season as the Yankees won the game, 7-3, over Jon Lester and the Sox.

Ivan Nova pitched very, very well in this one. He went a total of 6 innings, allowed just two runs (one earned) while striking out 10 and walking just a pair.

On the season, Nova is 10-3 with a 3.92 ERA to go along with a strong 3/1 K/BB ratio. Also, in his last 33 starts dating back to June 10 of last year, Nova is 22-3 with a 3.59 ERA. If that’s not good, I don’t know what is.

The offense came from many contributors as the Yankees got multi-hit games out of Derek Jeter, Curtis Granderson, Mark Teixeira, Nick Swisher, and Andruw Jones. Jones went 2-for-5 including a mammoth two-run homerun seventh. It was his 10th homer of the season and his fourth in his last three games. Robinson Cano also extended his hitting streak to 15 games as he hit a rocket off the Green Monster for a double in the ninth off Alfredo Aceves.

The Captain, Derek Jeter, had a pretty weird game. He went 3-for-5 while also committing a rather embarrassing error in the first inning. Cody Ross popped up an Ivan Nova pitch a mile high, which appeared to be the final out of the frame, but the ball hit the heel of Jeet’s glove and feel onto the grass. It also appeared that something was up with Derek’s right shoulder as he was favoring it early in the contest, but he stayed in and it didn’t seem to affect him as he collected those three hits.

This was a pretty big win for the Yanks as they now go into the All Star break with a 52-33 record, best in Major League Baseball. They have the largest division lead in MLB with a 7 game lead over Baltimore. They also have 7.5 and 9.5 game leads over Tampa and Boston, respectively, which is more important to me since those were the two teams at the beginning of the year who were supposed to be the biggest threat to the Yanks.
 


--Jesse Schindler, BYB Lead Staff Writer
Follow me on Twitter @SchindlerJesse

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