BOSTON — A late rally gave the Yankees a chance to finish a brutal weekend on a high note.
Instead, somehow, it only delayed the misery.
On a night when Sonny Gray took a no-hitter into the eighth inning, Aroldis Chapman and the Red Sox defense melted down in the ninth inning, and the Yankees took the lead in the 10th, it all came crumbling down in the bottom of the 10th to deliver one last knockout punch on the way back to New York.
After the Yankees went ahead by two runs in the top of the 10th, the Red Sox came back to win it in the bottom of the frame against Fernando Cruz, as Jarren Duran’s walk-off single lifted them to a 5-4 win that finished off a four-game sweep Sunday night at Fenway Park.
“Obviously a terrible weekend for us,” manager Aaron Boone said.
“It’s one of those crap moments of the season, crap times of the season where you have a really rough weekend against a division rival. But you’ve got to get over it quickly and understand we got a homestand starting [Monday].”
On a weekend in which they were dominated by the Red Sox’s starting pitching, the Yankees have now dropped eight of their last 11 after suffering their first four-game sweep to their archrivals since 2018.
Asked how the Yankees make sure this does not turn into something worse than an awful four games, Boone leaned into the adversity.
“That’s what we do, baby,” he said. “You’ve got to love this stuff. You’ve got to eat this stuff up. It’s a sickness. That’s what the grind is. We’ve got a really good freakin’ team. We played crappy on this trip kind of, feels bad, kind of pissed off. But it’s what we do. It’s what you sign up for. We’ll dig ourselves out of it and get it going here in short order. Bottom line is we didn’t play well this weekend and we’ve got to do better.”
After a late rally from the Yankees to erase a 2-0 deficit in the top of the ninth against Chapman to send the game to extras, they took the lead in the 10th.
Amed Rosario, who had broken up Gray’s no-hit bid in the eighth inning, led off with a sinking liner to right field that Wilyer Abreu dropped, allowing automatic runner Max Schuemann to score the go-ahead run from second. Abreu’s throw home was wild, giving Rosario an extra 90 feet to second base.
After Oswaldo Cabrera moved Rosario to third with a sacrifice bunt, Austin Wells got off a swinging bunt down the third base line that Rosario raced home on to beat the throw for the 4-2 lead.
But the Red Sox quickly mounted a comeback in the bottom of the 10th. After David Bednar had thrown two scoreless innings to help extend the game, Cruz entered and gave up a leadoff single through the right side that scored the automatic runner. Pinch hitter Masataka Yoshida followed with a double before Tsung-Che Cheng lifted a sacrifice fly to tie the game.
The Yankees then used a five-man infield against Duran, but it didn’t matter as he laced a line drive to right field to win it.
Three outs away from finishing off a miserable weekend and suffering a four-game sweep, José Caballero led off the ninth with a single before Anthony Volpe — who entered the game after Jazz Chisholm Jr. was ejected in the sixth inning — drew a walk.
Ben Rice came up next and flied out to right field, but with Caballero tagging to third, Abreu’s throw sailed over the second baseman’s head and skipped all the way to the backstop. That allowed Caballero to score and Volpe to take third.
Paul Goldschmidt then pinch hit and, with the infield in, smacked a chopper to shortstop. But Volpe raced home on contact and got his hand in ahead of the tag to tie the game 2-2 in stunning fashion.
Before Chapman’s blowup, the night had belonged to Gray, who did not give up a hit until Rosario laced a hard ground ball up the middle for a single with one out in the eighth inning.
That marked the end of Gray’s night as the former disgruntled Yankee walked off to a standing ovation after settling for 7 ¹/₃ shutout innings while striking out nine.
Other Red Sox starters had flirted with some history earlier in the series, to lesser extents. Payton Tolle retired the first 16 Yankees on Friday night before fellow lefty Jake Bennett carried a no-hitter into the fifth inning Saturday.
