BOSTON — Stephen Drew arrived Friday night having to simply glide down the Fenway Park hall from the Red Sox clubhouse to the Yankees room.
Acquired Thursday for Kelly Johnson, Drew lugged a brutal batting average with him as he changed sides in baseball’s fiercest rivalry — and the uniform wasn’t the only thing he had to change. Since Derek Jeter wasn’t moving from shortstop, Drew’s position, Drew was going to play second base for the first time as a professional.
The deal paid a big dividend Sunday night, when Drew helped the Yankees top the Red Sox, 8-7, in front of 38,035 at Fenway Park by going 2-for-4 and driving in four runs.
“He had been swinging the bat pretty good before we got him so I don’t think he was a .176 hitter,’’ hitting coach Kevin Long said of the left-handed hitting Drew, a free agent who didn’t re-sign with the Red Sox until May 29 and no doubt was covered in rust.
Drew drove in a run in the second inning with a fielder’s choice ground out, doubled in another in the fourth and had a two-run single in the three-run fifth when the Yankees tied the score, 7-7 against Clay Buchholz.
“It’s been a weird year. I can’t say it hasn’t. Not playing for 2 ½ months when everyone was playing. It’s definitely something you can’t prepare for. I did the best I could staying in shape, taking 80 ground balls every day and working out, but it’s still not a big-league game with big-league pitching,’’ Drew said. “It’s still baseball. These guys are great. It’s very easy. I’m just coming in here and doing the best I can.’’
The Yankees’ second straight victory allowed them to stay five games back of the AL East-leading Orioles and pull to within 1 ½ lengths of the Blue Jays for the second AL wild-card ticket. It also sent them home with a 3-3 road trip record after losing two of three to the Rangers, the worst team in the league.
“We would have liked to do better, but it could have been worse,’’ Joe Girardi said about breaking even against the terrible Rangers and the Red Sox, who are last in the AL East and dealt away Jon Lester and John Lackey last week.
Drew wasn’t the only Yankee with a big hand in the victory that was made possible by erasing the 3-0 lead the Red Sox copped against David Phelps in the first inning.
Esmil Rogers, a right-hander who was working in the Blue Jays’ minor league system when the Yankees claimed him off waivers Thursday, provided three almost perfect innings of relief and allowed Girardi to use Dellin Betances for the eighth and David Robertson for the ninth.
“I want to do everything I can not to go back,’’ Rogers said of a return trip to the minors. He is the 29th pitcher to hurl for the Yankees this season which is a club record.
Phelps was removed after two very bad innings in which he gave up five runs and six hits. Phelps was working with an inflamed right elbow, making Rogers a candidate to take his scheduled start Friday against the Rays.
Brett Gardner chipped in with a 3-for-4 game that included his 15th homer, a solo shot in the sixth that gave the Yankees the lead for good. Betances worked a perfect eighth, fanning two, and David Robertson didn’t pay for walking No. 9 hitter Christian Vazquez on four pitches to start the ninth. With pinch-runner Mookie Betts running, Brock Holt’s liner found third baseman Chase Headley’s glove to start a double play.
Robertson then survived a long foul ball down the left-field line by Dustin Pedroia before ending it with a grounder to Derek Jeter toward the middle.
Robertson notched his 29th save in 31 chances but he had plenty of help in sending the Yankees home to face the AL Central-leading Tigers on a two-game winning streak.