Four HRs, Tazawa’s pitching give Boston 14-1 win

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Four HRs, Tazawa’s pitching give Boston 14-1 win
BOSTON (AP)—Kevin Youkilis(notes) homered twice and tied a career high with six RBIs, rookie Junichi Tazawa(notes) stopped New York’s big bats and the Boston Red Sox broke a five-game skid against the Yankees with a 14-1 win Saturday.

Series at a Glance
NY Yankees 20
Boston 11
Fri, Aug 21 - Final
NY Yankees 1
Boston 14
Sat, Aug 22 - Final
NY Yankees at
Boston
Sun, Aug 23 - 8:05 pm ET

The Red Sox roughed up A.J. Burnett(notes) and set a team record with their eighth consecutive multihomer game. David Ortiz(notes) and Alex Gonzalez also connected for Boston, which has 39 homers in August with eight games left.

The Yankees beat the Red Sox 20-11 in the series opener with their most runs and hits (23) since July 20, 2007. But on Saturday, they left six runners in scoring position while Boston continued the slugging that has produced 49 runs in five games, four of them wins.

Tazawa worked out of trouble all day, allowing eight hits and two walks in six innings. In four of them, the Yankees had runners in scoring position with fewer than two outs but couldn’t score. And after going 15 for 25 with runners in scoring position Friday, the were 0 for 9 on Saturday.

Tazawa (2-2) spent the past four seasons with Nippon Oil ENEOS in the amateur Japan Industrial League. He appeared in just 53 games in that stretch, but the Red Sox signed him to a three-year major league contract in December.

The 23-year-old right-hander made his major league debut against New York on Aug. 7, and allowed Alex Rodriguez’s(notes) game-ending, two-run homer in the Yankees’ 2-0 win in 15 innings. He won his first major league start Aug. 11 against Detroit when he allowed one earned run in five innings.


Fans hold up letters for Bosto…
AP - Aug 22, 7:27 pm EDT
Tazawa struck out two and completed his longest outing by getting Melky Cabrera(notes) to ground into a double play with runners at first and third.

Daniel Bard(notes) relieved and allowed Nick Swisher’s(notes) 21st homer in the seventh.

The Yankees dropped to 15-4 in their last 19 games, a stretch that includes a four-game sweep of Boston. Their AL East lead over the Red Sox fell to 6 1/2 games.

Burnett (10-7) got off to a rare poor start when he allowed three runs in the first on a two-run double by Ortiz and an RBI single by Jason Bay(notes). In his 15 previous outings, Burnett allowed just one first-inning run.

The Red Sox added four runs in the second on Gonzalez’s first homer since being acquired from Cincinnati on Aug. 14 and Youkilis’ three-run shot.

Burnett allowed nine runs and nine hits in five innings, dropping to 0-3 in his last five starts.

Alfredo Aceves(notes) allowed three runs in the sixth on an RBI single by Victor Martinez(notes) and a two-run homer by Youkilis, his 22nd.

Youkilis added an RBI double in the two-run eighth.

NOTES: Boston scored 13 of its 14 runs with two outs. … Yankees captain Derek Jeter(notes) went 0 for 3 after entering the game on a 25-for-46 roll. … Ortiz reached 20 homers for the eighth straight season, the last seven with the Red Sox. … Hall of Famer and 1967 Triple Crown winner Carl Yastrzemski turned 70 on Saturday. … The Red Sox called up RHP Enrique Gonzalez(notes) from Triple-A Pawtucket and sent RHP Michael Bowden(notes) to their top farm club.

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