NEW YORK — Fans were chanting his name, louder with each pass. “Carpenter! Carpenter!” Anthony Rizzo, from the other side of the dugout, signaled to Matt Carpenter to give the crowd what it wanted.
So Carpenter scaled the steps to his left, raised his hand and received his first curtain call of his Yankees career.
If anyone deserved it, it was Carpenter, who hammered a pair of three-run home runs and drove in seven runs total in a 14-1 bludgeoning of the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium on Saturday night.
There were 47,997 fans in the crowd — the highest paid attendance figure in the Bronx all year, according to the Yankees.
Aaron Judge also homered twice, pushing him to an MLB-best 33 bombs with one game to play before the All-Star break begins Monday. Giancarlo Stanton also drove in a run.
Jameson Taillon recovered from a one-run, 19-pitch first inning to last six frames. He struck out five, walked one and gave up two hits, including a Rafael Devers’ shot on the sixth pitch of the game.
Taillon recovered to retire the final 17 batters he faced, feeding Boston a fastball-heavy diet. He threw 79 pitches. Taillon had entered the night struggling badly. He had a 6.81 ERA over his previous seven starts. Ryan Weber threw three scoreless innings to end the game, nailing his first career save.
The Yankees improved to 62-28. They have a 13-game American League East lead with the Rays losing to the Orioles earlier in the night. They’re 5-4 against the Red Sox this season.
A pair of aces will face off when the Yankees’ Gerrit Cole takes on Chris Sale on Sunday afternoon. The winner will take the three-game series victory. The Yankees fell in extras to the Red Sox on Friday night.
Carpenter has 13 home runs in just 30 games since joining the Yankees after the Rangers released him from his minor-league deal in late-May. He started in right field with the struggling Joey Gallo benched.
Carpenter’s first blast gave the Yankees a 4-1 lead in the first inning. He crushed another to extend the Yankees’ lead to 8-1 in the fifth, when Judge also went deep. Judge crushed a two-run shot in the sixth to give the Yankees a 10-1 advantage. He drew a bases-loaded walk on a 13-pitch plate appearance in the eighth inning, putting the Yankees ahead, 11-1. In the next at-bat, third baseman Rafael Devers’ throwing error on Aaron Hicks’ grounder to first base scored another run.
Then Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s two-run single to center with one out put the Yankees ahead, 14-1.
A mysterious drone hovered above Yankee Stadium for about 15 minutes during the sixth inning before disappearing outside of the stadium.
Before the game, the Yankees put reliever Miguel Castro on the injured list with a right shoulder strain. They called up Tim Locastro, who took over as Judge’s defensive replacement in center field in the eighth inning.
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Brendan Kuty may be reached at [email protected].
