The New York Yankees (75-64) will host their bitter rivals, the Boston Red Sox (84-57) for four games at Yankee Stadium in which the Bronx Bombers can make one desperate push for a shot at the American League East crown. Game 1 of the series is tonight at 7:05 p.m., and can be live streamed here. Yankees fans can listen to the game on WCBS 880 AM, while Red Sox Nation can turn their dials to 93.7 WEEI.
Tonight, Jake Peavy (11-5, 3.91 ERA) takes the hill for the Red Sox and will look to set a tone for the series, as well as stem the Yankees mountain of momentum that has built since Ryan Dempster beaned Alex Rodriguez in August.
Yankees manager Joe Girardi is stressing that his veteran-laden team not get caught up in the hoopla surrounding the two teams' first meeting since A-Rod's drilling. Retaliation is unlikely with the Yankees needing to win every game possible; putting men on base unnecessarily is generally a poor way to go about racking up victories.
"I think that obviously we know what's at stake and we have to go out and play the games and win the games, and that's the most important thing," Girardi said
At the time of the plunking, Red Sox slugger David Ortiz, who smashed two home runs last night, criticized Dempster for drilling Rodriguez and waking up the team. His words were prophetic, as the Yankees won that night and have surged into wildcard contention once again. He insists it's all water under the bridge now, though.
"All I said was that I didn't think that hitting A-Rod was right at the time and it was because that kind of woke him up and we ended up losing the game. Did I lie about that? I think it was what everybody saw. I didn't say that I was mad at my teammates for hitting somebody, or I was mad that he hit A-Rod."
The Yankees will counter Peavy with Ivan Nova (8-4, 2.88 ERA).
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