NEW YORK — Is the worst over? The Red Sox and their jittery fans have to hope so after Boston’s 7-4, 14-inning victory over the New York Yankees in the second game of Sunday’s day-night doubleheader at Yankee Stadium.
With the win, the Red Sox held on to a one-game lead over the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League wild-card race. That’s after losing the opener 6-2, then spotting the Yankees a 3-0 lead in the first inning of the nightcap and sweating out extra innings.
Jacoby Ellsbury’s three-run home run off Scott Proctor in the 14th put the Red Sox ahead. MVP candidate Ellsbury, who hit two solo home runs in the first game, has 31 with 103 RBIs.
“I didn’t care who hit it,” Boston manager Terry Francona said. “But that seemed kind of fitting.”
Boston will play the final three games of its regular season starting tonight in Baltimore. The Rays will host the Yankees, who have clinched home-field advantage throughout the playoffs and have nothing to play for.
The Red Sox had lost seven of eight going into the night game and are 6-18 in September. They are trying to avoid blowing a lead that was nine games on Sept. 4.
Their collapse, if completed, would rival any in baseball history, including the franchise’s own 1978 AL East debacle against the Bucky Dent Yankees. No team has ever failed to make the playoffs after leading the wild card by 10 games. The Red Sox led by 10 on Aug. 17.
“This game meant a lot to us,” Francona said.
The Red Sox played shoddy baseball and got poor starting pitching from Tim Wakefield in the opener. It looked like more of the same in the nightcap when Mark Teixeira hit a two-run double off John Lackey in the first and scored when Jason Varitek threw the ball into left field as Teixeira was trying to take third.
But Lackey, who entered the game with a 6.49 ERA, stymied the Yankees from there and the game went into extras tied at 4.
Boston used closer Jonathan Papelbon for 2 1/3 innings to keep the game tied. And if the Red Sox had scored in the 11th, “He was going to go back out again,” Francona said.
