Yankees Win Eighth Straight, Take Over AL East Lead

Well it's officially on, the Boston Red Sox are now looking up at the New York Yankees.

The Bombers (69-42) came to Fenway Park for a three-game series and opened it up with a tidy 3-2 win tonight over the Red Sox (68-43).

With it, New York cut the season series to 8-2 in favor of Boston and more importantly, the eighth straight win for the Yanks vaulted them to the top of the AL East for the first time in nearly a month.

The pitching matchup was Bartolo Colon vs. Jon Lester, one that clearly favors the Red Sox but that's not how it turned out unfortunately.

Boston did a nice job of getting the injected/juiced up Colon out in the fifth inning but that led to five Yankees reliever combining for 4.1 scoreless frames. Colon went 4.2 innings, allowing two earned runs on six hits with a walk and two strikeouts.

Boone Logan (3-2) came on to get Adrian Gonzalez (0 for 4) to strikeout with the bases loaded to end the fifth inning. Not surprisingly, that turned out to be a pivotal moment as New York handcuffed the Red Sox offense from there while they got all the runs they needed in the sixth.

Jacoby Ellsbury had driven in Marco Scutaro with a wall ball double in the third while David Ortiz crushed his 21st homer of the season in the fourth for Boston's two runs.

Curtis Granderson started New York's rally with an RBI single that plated Eduardo Nunez. With the bases loaded and no outs, Lester got Robinson Cano to ground into a double play (with the tying run coming across). Nick Swisher (2 hits) came through with the go-ahead RBI, a ground-rule double down the left field line.

Lester (11-5) was on for a while until his pitch count started to get really high in the sixth and he couldn't find the plate while the Yankees patient lineup waited him out. He went six innings, allowing three earned runs on five hits with four walks and seven strikeouts.

Logan earned the win by going an inning. Something named Cory Wade got the last out of the sixth which set it up perfectly for Rafael Soriano (seventh), David Robertson (eighth) and Mariano Rivera (ninth). That's a formidable late-innings trio for New York.

After Ortiz grounded out, Carl Crawford (2 hits) got an infield hit against Rivera but the greatest closer in MLB history calmly struck out Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Josh Reddick (2 hits)-both looking at nasty cutters-to end it and gain his 29th save of the season. Rivera has 15 straight years of 25+ saves.

CC Sabathia faces John Lackey tomorrow afternoon in what can only be described as a lock for the Yankees. Barring something crazy (Bigfoot, UFOs landing on the field, Sabathia skipping the game to pig out at Legal Sea Foods all day), this does not look good on paper for the Red Sox. However, the reverse lock might be in effect here too. We'll probably know quickly as Lackey is likely to give up about eight runs in the first two innings.

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