The Yankees lost 2-3 against their hated rivals the Boston red Sox August 7^th. The loss put Boston ahead of the Yanks in the standing as well as they have 1 more victory this season than New York. The game went into extra innings and it is clear that the two teams will be in a very tight race in the AL East.

In all, New York had 8 hits that produced their two runs. Both runs came off of solo homers in the 5^th and 7^th innings. Brett Gardner hit his 5^th of the year for the Yanks while Eduardo Nunez added his fourth. The loss was credited to Yankee pitcher Phil Hughes and was his fourth loss of the year.

The Red Sox got 11 hits in all and came up big down the stretch to get the win. They scored a run in the bottom of the 9^th to tie the game and then Reddick hit the winning RBI in the bottom of the tenth. The win was credited to Boston pitcher Daniel Bard who is now 2-5 this season. The game was nationally televised on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball and proved to be a worthy one.

After the loss to Boston, the Yankees got a day off on the 8^th before traveling back to New York to begin a 3- game series against the Angels. Game one was another loss for the Yankees in late innings as a homerun off one of the best, if not the best, relief pitcher of all time. In a 4-4 game in the top of the 9^th, the Angels Bobby Abreu hit his second homerun of the game off of Mariano Rivera to give the Angels a 2-run lead. They would hang on from there to get a 6-4 victory and move to 64-52 on the season.

The Yankees got 9 hits in all including a homerun by Curtis Granderson, his 29^th of the year. Mariano Rivera’s 9^th inning troubles led to him getting credited with the loss for the Yanks, which moved his record to 1-2 this season. Rivera rarely is credited with losses as he comes in normally in save opportunities. He also rarely is unable to get batters in order and pitches well when he does get in jams. On this night, however, he made a mistake and Abreu made him pay for it.

The Angels had 10 hits in all, two of which were Abreu homeruns. The 2 homers bring Abreu’s total homeruns to 6 on the year. The Angels were down 1-0 most of the game until the 6^th inning when they strung together hits and scored 4 runs in the inning. The Yankees answered and tied things in the 7^th before Rivera’s mistake in the 9^th. Angel pitcher Scott Downs got credit for the victory and brought his record to 6-2 this season. Jordan Walden came on in the bottom of the 9^th to close things out and recorded his 26^th save of the year. The teams just started a series with an exciting game one, but two games were left to play and provided some more good baseball.