The New York Yankees lost to the Boston Red Sox by a score of 7-0. A.J. Burnett started the game and lost. A.J. Burnett did not have a good game. In fact, he was terrible. I can’t even blame the error by A-Rod and the past balls by Posada. A.J. had the look of fear on his face. He wasn’t the big game pitcher tonight, the one the Yankees brought in with a high salary. At the start of the game, Burnett had great velocity on his 4-Seam fastball. He was throwing it at 96 mph but he was not locating it and had very bad command. He had a very bad strike to ball ratio and it was mostly because his fastball had good action on it. It had great sink but he couldn’t get it over the plate. This lead to a high pitch count. When he did throw strikes he threw it out and up over the plate and the Red Sox crushed it. His slider was backing up to right-handed batters and he had absolutely no command on his breaking ball. His curveball had a 12-13″ break on it. Overall, Burnett had a bad game. You had to know that the Yankees would need to hold the Red Sox down since Josh Beckett was pitching. Josh Beckett had a nasty curveball with a 14″ break and he was mixing in his 2 and 4-Seam fastballs very well. Beckett showed up tonight and showed why he is one of the players that stirs the drink for the Red Sox. You also got a feeling that the Yankees would have a harder time coming back against the Red Sox like they did against the Rays because the Red Sox have an excellent bull pen. If the Yankees are down against the Red Sox, it seems they get discouraged and don’t have the same fight like they do against other teams in the league. It’s a mental thing. After all, the Yankees are 0-6 against the Sox this year. Player of the Game: Josh Beckett. Showed why he is a big game pitcher.
