RED SOX SWEEP YANKS!!!!  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[BULLO12]

Red Sox upend Yanks for 5th time in 6 games

A-Rod hits first HR of year, but Boston claims 3-2 12 inning win

Kathy Willens / AP

Updated: 2:16 p.m. ET April  25, 2004

NEW YORK - Manny Ramirez’s liner leading off the 12th inning hit the wall in right-center with such a thud it knocked the energy out of the sold-out Yankee Stadium crowd.

Standing on second in the bright sunshine, things looked brilliant to the player who Boston desperately tried to trade for Alex Rodriguez in the offseason.

Ramirez ended up scoring on Mark Bellhorn’s sacrifice fly, and the Red Sox defeated the New York Yankees 3-2 Saturday, their fifth win in six games this year against their bitter rival.

“For me, I just go out there and play my game. I don’t care what people say,†said Ramirez, who at times in the offseason wanted a trade. “I’m just trying to do my best for the team. If they give me a pitch to hit I’m going to try to hit it, and today it just kind of worked out.â€Â

Scott Williamson, Alan Embree, Keith Foulke (1-0) and Mike Timlin, who got his first save, held the struggling Yankees’ offense without a run for six innings, increasing the bullpen’s scoreless streak to 22 2-3 innings. Boston, which won despite going 0-for-19 with runners in scoring position, dropped New York to 8-10.

Boston won despite becoming the first team to go 0-for-19 with runners in scoring position since Pittsburgh in 4-1 loss to San Diego on June 11, 1977, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. The Red Sox dropped New York to 8-10.

“Our role is to go out there and hold them,†Foulke said. “The guys in the dugout are going to score some runs.â€Â

The Yankees are 3½ games out of first for the first time since May 15, 2002, when they trailed the Red Sox by four, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

“Down on themselves? We can’t allow that to happen,†Yankees manager Joe Torre said. “There’s no room for sympathy in this game. I mean you got to go out there and play.â€Â

And the Yankees will have a tough task Sunday as they try to avoid their first sweep by Boston since Sept. 9-12, 1999, when they face Pedro Martinez.

Rodriguez nearly spoiled Boston’s day all on his own.

The Red Sox jumped out to a 2-0 lead with an assist from Yankees starter Kevin Brown, but Rodriguez brought New York to 2-1 in the fourth inning with his first homer in pinstripes and helped tie it by sparking a seventh-inning rally with a headfirst slide into first, then scoring on Gary Sheffield’s single.

A-Rod also possibly saved two runs in the third with a diving stop deep behind third base of Kevin Millar’s sharp grounder. He made the throw from foul territory to retire Millar.

The crowd of 55,195 was eerily quiet for much of the game until his slide in the seventh. Rodriguez got the fans going when he ran hard into the wall chasing a foul ball behind third base.

After failing to score with the bases loaded against Mariano Rivera in the 11th, the Red Sox got to Paul Quantrill (2-1) in the 12th.

Ramirez hit a leadoff double off the wall in right-center, advanced to third on a groundout and, after Millar was hit by a pitch, scored on Bellhorn’s fly to center.

Ramirez has thrived with the Red Sox this season, hitting .380 with 13 RBIs and four home runs. He even checked his temper in the first inning when he was knocked down by a pitch near his head from Kevin Brown. Ramirez bounced onto his feet and, with his hands on hips, glared at Brown.

In Game 3 of the 2003 ALCS, Ramirez touched off the melee that was highlighted by Martinez throwing Don Zimmer to the turf when Roger Clemens’ pitch was high, but not close to his head. This time, Ramirez kept his cool, then hit a fly to center that scored Johnny Damon, the first of three sacrifice flies for Boston, who left 14 runners on base.

Boston manger Terry Francona thinks Ramirez changed after the tumultuous offseason.

“We tried to put all that behind us,†Francona said. “This guy has been great for us. He may not show all of his sides to (the reporters) but he’s been just great, not just today but in the clubhouse, as a player, as a teammate, whatever.â€Â

Before Rodriguez led off the seventh with an infield single, the Yankees had just one hit off Bronson Arroyo  Rodriguez’s third homer and first at Yankee Stadium for New York.

“Each day is getting more comfortable,†said Rodriguez, who is 9-for-20 since his 1-for-17 performance in Boston last weekend.

The Yankees came in hitting .228, next to last in the American League, and looked every bit as bad. They went 4-for-36, and except for three singles in the seventh never really looked comfortable at the plate.

Derek Jeter went 0-for-5 and doesn’t have a hit in 21 at-bats, the longest hitless streak of his career. Bernie Williams, dropped to eighth in the order, also went hitless in five at-bats and is in a 1-for-31 slide.

“When you’re not swinging well, everybody has something to say,†Jeter said. “You just have to work and hope you get a hit some day.â€Â

Boston went up 2-0 when they loaded the bases in the second when Brown committed two errors and hit a batter before Pokey Reese flied out to center.

Brown then settled down and held the Red Sox for seven innings. He gave up just four hits and two runs  one earned  but walked four.

Arroyo finished up allowing two runs and four hits in six-plus innings, his second solid start against Brown and the Yankees a week.

Notes: Reese went 1-for-2 against Brown and is 3-for-18 against him, with all his hits coming this season. ... The Yankees’ first three strikeouts were looking. ... Bill Mueller got his 200th career double in the fifth.

[smazza]

celtics

[Velcro]

Celtics haven't been playing well lately... no biggie... they really shouldn't have even made the playoffs.  The team will be dismantled and built, again, around Paul Pierce.  Chucky will probably stay, but after that, i don't know who will be back.

They should disassemble the Yankees.

[KnightsRule]

celtics

Red Sox fans dont give a crap if the celts were swept.  We all knew it was coming.  No way in hell celts should have even made the playoffs, they wouldnt be a top 12 team in the west this year.  Ainge has a big plan so we will see if it pans out, until then we have our sox and our pats.

[smazza]

fall apart  at end of year

 

    It is only April and the Red Sox have won April before and then October has been the Yankees' again. But the Red Sox beat the Yankees again yesterday, made them look bad again, didn't give them a hit after the sixth inning. This time the Red Sox beat the Yankees with an infield of David McCarty and Cesar Crespo and Pokey Reese and Mark Bellhorn, up against Jason Giambi and Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, whose contracts have a total value of about $560 million. This time the Red Sox shut them out, by a score of 2-0.

It means the Yankees scored four runs at Yankee Stadium this weekend. The last time they had that few in a three-game series against the Red Sox, at home, was in 1974. Here is the only other thing you need to know about what it was like at the Stadium, on a day when a Yankee crowd was colder than the day: Derek Jeter got booed by his own louder than he ever has been in his life. Jeter doesn't hit. He is 0-for-25 now and struck out three times. Bernie Williams feels as if he is 0-for-April. Alex Rodriguez is starting to hit the ball now, but then he is used to being the only hitter on a team playing the way the Yankees are playing these days. The Yankees did nothing yesterday against Pedro Martinez, who went seven innings and gave up four hits and no runs and threw strikes with his breaking ball and with his changeup and every once in a while would throw in a fastball that reminded you what he used to do to the Yankees at Yankee Stadium when he had more arm than he does now.

But he had enough yesterday to shut them out for seven before Scott Williamson shut them out for the last two. Manny Ramirez hit one against Javier Vazquez that ended up in the Red Sox bullpen behind the retired numbers in left, and sounded like it wanted to cross 161st St. when he hit it. The Red Sox have now played seven games against the Yankees the last two weekends and won six of them. It is a good thing Travis Lee made a diving play behind first base last Sunday afternoon after Joe Torre gave Jose Contreras the hook.

"We are in the abyss right now, no question," Brian Cashman, the general manager, said in the Yankee clubhouse. "But we'll get out of it."

Behind him, in the trainer's room, you could see Reggie Jackson talking quietly with Derek Jeter, perhaps offering grief counseling. Jeter also made another error yesterday, on a routine ball to short. Jason Giambi should have caught it. Any half-decent first baseman would have caught it. The official scorer treated it like what it was, though, a wild pitch from the shortstop. And a ball dropped in front of him down near the left-field seats. And when he came out of the trainer's room, he was asked about the boos right away.

"It's understandable," Jeter said. "We haven't been playing very well."

He comes out of the school of Mr. Torre. You knew he wasn't going to say anything about the booing. Nobody was. "The fans here are intense," Bernie Williams said across the room from Jeter. They have been the darlings at the Stadium the longest, two of the heroes of October of 1996. "They demand our best effort."

He was asked this: "You think they're not seeing a proper effort from you?"

Williams: "They're more concentrated on results than effort."

In the manager's office, Joe Torre said, "It was a terrible weekend."

Then he said what Williams would say a few minutes later, in a Yankee clubhouse on the 25th of April as quiet as the Yankee bats were against the Red Sox, on the weekend where the Yankee bats were as quiet as they have been here against the Red Sox in 30 years:

"The fans come out here expecting us to win."

Of course no season is ever lost in April. The Yankees started 7-11 in 1997 and then 11-12 and ended up in the playoffs, even if they did lose in the first round to the Indians. But they are not going to roll over the rest of the American League. And when they are going bad, the way they are going bad right now, you have a right to look past the big names and the big salaries and the big resumes and ask this question:

How many of them have already played the best baseball they will ever play? This isn't to suggest the Yankees are going to play like this all season, or that they don't have it in them to win it all. But there is a lot of age on this team. The older you get, the harder it gets to maintain a high level of play. It becomes harder to be great. And sometimes in sports, all kinds of greatness in the room doesn't always add up to a great team. The Yankees had an awful lot of very good players when they were the best team in baseball. Not nearly this many great ones. The Red Sox have a lot of good players and tough outs now. The last two weekends they have beat up the Yankees without either Nomar Garciaparra or Trot Nixon.

"We get a much needed off-day tomorrow," Brian Cashman said.

Jeter said he'd boo himself right now. There is a scene in "The Alamo" where Billy Bob Thornton, playing Davy Crockett, looks out at Santa Ana's army and says, "We're going to need a lot more men." If the Yankees keep going like this, they may need to buy a few more players.