For the first time in over a month, the Yankees gave Jordan Montgomery run support Thursday night.
It came in the form of just one run, but Montgomery took it and made it stand up anyways as he left with a lead after throwing 5 ⅔ shutout innings, with a 55-minute rain delay mixed in.
Still, as they have made a habit of doing to him lately, the Yankees let Montgomery’s efforts go to waste. This time it came in excruciating fashion as the bullpen blew his one-run lead in the seventh, a two-run lead in the ninth and then another one-run lead in the 10th as the Red Sox rallied to sink the Yankees 5-4 at Fenway Park.
“I’m still pretty sick to my stomach right now,” Montgomery said. “It’s just a tough one. We felt like we had a good chance of winning and just kind of lost it.”
Montgomery turned in one of his best starts of the season, limiting the Red Sox to just three singles and one walk while striking out six. With the Yankees bullpen depleted, after the two starters before him lasted only four innings apiece, he worked into the sixth inning before the lengthy rain delay took its toll on him.
The left-hander had escaped a jam in the third inning but otherwise cruised through the fourth before the tarp came onto the field in the top of the fifth. A 55-minute rain delay ensued, but the Yankees kept Montgomery in the game, despite going an hour and 13 minutes between his last pitch of the fourth and his first pitch of the fifth.
“I just tried to keep my adrenaline going,” Montgomery said. “Move around, I did an extra warmup and then threw off the mound. But my legs got really heavy in the sixth.
“I was honest with [Aaron] Boone, told him to have someone ready and I would empty the tank.”
Montgomery threw a 1-2-3 fifth inning and recorded two quick outs in the sixth before allowing a Bogaerts single on his 83rd pitch of the night, at which point Boone went to the bullpen.
Over his last five starts before Thursday, Montgomery had been solid with nothing to show for it. During that stretch he went 0-4 while giving up 13 runs in 28 ⅓ innings (4.13 ERA), with the Yankees not scoring a single run for him while he was in the game.
Montgomery finally got the smallest bit of support Thursday and did all he could to turn it into a win, only to watch it all collapse once the bullpen took over.
“Every time I’m out there, I really believe we’re going to win,” Montgomery said. “We win a lot of my games and I’m always going to give us a chance. Just put my eyes on my next start and be ready to do it again.”
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