David Price did not have his best stuff, and a chilly rain combined with a Yankees' lead made a Red Sox sweep of their most bitter rivals seem like a long shot. But a long shot is just what Boston got when catcher Christian Vazquez blasted a two-run homer over the Green Monster to give the Sox a two-run lead they would not relinquish en route to an 8-7 win at Fenway Park last night.
The Sox also got a clutch long ball from Travis Shaw, who tied the game at six when he wrapped a shot around the Pesky Pole in the sixth inning. Price was still in the game in the seventh when Alex Rodriguez came up with the score tied, and manager John Farrell showed a lot of faith in Price by leaving him in to face A-Rod who had already homered and doubled off Price. But Price rewarded that faith by getting A-Rod to ground out, setting the stage for the go-ahead homer by Vazquez in the bottom of the frame, a shot that came off of Dellin Betances, who's normally stingy with the long ball but also gave up a game-winning homer to David Ortiz in the first game of the series. Craig Kimbrel pitched the ninth and got his eighth save of the year. The Sox get a day off today before heading out to the Windy City to take on the White Sox. The Yankees, meanwhile, have lost five in a row and occupy last place in the division, six games out of first, but, it's early. They travel to Baltimore next to face the Orioles.
The NY Mets were riding an eight game winning streak until Madison Bumgarner said "that'll be enough, thank you." The San Francisco Giants ace shut down the high-powered Mets offense in a 6-1 victory, scattering six hits while striking out seven over six innings of work. Hunter Pence homered and drove in three runs to lead the San Francisco offense.
In the NHL playoffs, the St. Louis Blues' David Backes gave himself a nice present on his thirty-second birthday, scoring the overtime game winner, stuffing a rebound home to give the Blues s 4-3 win and a one-all tie in their second round series against the Dallas Stars. Antoine Roussel was none to happy about that. He'd been tagged for an interference penalty which gave St. Louis a power play to set up Backes' birthday winner.
In San Jose, the Sharks got a late goal from Joe Pavelski for a 3-2 win over the Nashville Predators and a two games to none lead in that series,
In the NBA playoffs, the Toronto Raptors had never won a seven-game playoff series, but that's no longer the case after a game seven win against the Indiana Pacers 89-84 in Toronto last night. DeMar DeRozan poured in thirty to lead the Raptors, who will next face the Miami Heat, who dispatched the Charlotte Hornets in Game seven 106-73 last night. And the Golden State Warriors, without an injured Steph Curry, took Game one from the Portland Trail Blazers 118-106.
Finally, football news, the kind the rest of the world pays attention to in far greater numbers than we do here. The Leicester City Foxes will be crowned champions of the English Premier League today if Totenham loses or draws against Chelsea. This, after a thrilling 1-1 draw Leicester achieved yesterday against Manchester United. Man-U had taken a 1-0 lead just seven minutes into the match but Leicester captain Wes Morgan tied the game on a header off a free kick set play and the Foxes held on for the tie in some anxious moments late in the second half when defender Danny Drinkwater clipped Man-U's Memphis Depay and was issued a second yellow card. That's an automatic ejection that left the Foxes with ten men on the field to Manchester's eleven. It could have been worse as Manchester protested that Depay was taken down inside the penalty area, which would have resulted in a penalty kick, almost always resulting in a goal, and that would have given Man-U the victory. But the tie gives Leicester a chance to win the title with some help from Chelsea today, or they can win it outright themselves when they host Everton at home on Sunday. And they'll have their leading scorer Jamie Vardy back for that game. He was out yesterday due to a red card in the team's previous contest.
I have been trying to wrap my head around the significance of this accomplishment should the Foxes win the title, searching for an analogy with a long-suffering U.S. sports team equivalent and I think that's been my problem. There is none. Leicester City has never won a Premier League title. Ever. Not once in its one-hundred-thirty plus year history. They came closest with a second place finish in 1929. They were a five-thousand to one shot to win the title to start this season. They spend a fraction of what bigger, more glamorous clubs like Man-U and Arsenal and Chelsea spend on their rosters. The best I can come up with is a fictional team: The Little League Bad News Bears, and even they lost to the Yankees in the final game of that great movie. If Leicester City does make it to the top of the hill this year, it must be vaulted into the top tier of the greatest underdog sports stories of this century or the last, and I admit fully to being a bandwagon fan. Go Foxes.
