BOSTON — Jon Lester gave the Red Sox the outing the Yankees desperately needed from their own ace lefty, CC Sabathia.
Sabathia struggled yet again in the Yankees 5-1 loss at Fenway Park Saturday, proving to be no match for Lester, who retired the first nine Yankees he faced and gave up one run over eight innings.
“He located even better than he normally does,” said Lyle Overbay, who struck out all three times he faced Lester. “A lot of pitches looked like they were going to be strikes and they ended up either out of the zone or maybe just on the bottom.”
The left-handed hitting Overbay came into the game with good numbers against Lester, going 9-for-25 with two homers and two doubles to go along with three walks and nine RBIs.
But an even more effective cutter than usual — and a weaker Yankees lineup — gave Lester and the surging Red Sox more than enough to work with.
“He was throwing his pitches and doing whatever he wanted,” said Robinson Cano, who grounded out three times against Lester (14-8). “His cutter was tough.”
Curtis Granderson was the only Yankee to do any damage against Lester, with a fourth-inning triple leading to the team’s lone run then adding a leadoff double in the sixth.
“He moved the ball around really well and threw his cutter effectively,” manager Joe Girardi said. “He threw a lot of strikes and seemed to be ahead of all our guys.’’
It helped that the Yankees were without Alfonso Soriano, leaving the struggling Vernon Wells hitting in fifth followed by Overbay then the light-hitting Brendan Ryan, Ichiro Suzuki and catcher J.R. Murphy his first start in the majors.
“He wasn’t that much different than he normally is,” Overbay said. “But it was like he had two different fastballs that were cutting even more. It was kind of an extra weapon.”
Other than Granderson’s two extra-base hits, Lester surrendered just a one-out single to Ryan and a pair of walks, as the Yankees got more than one baserunner in an inning just once.
“He just took control of the game and we couldn’t get it away from him,” Overbay said.