Yankees, Red Sox produce wild first game of historic London Series

Thomas Schlarp

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Yankees, Red Sox produce wild first game of historic London Series image

Major League Baseball presented its first game in Europe on Saturday. It will be hard to top the bizarreness fans witnessed.

The Red Sox and Yankees — two of baseball's most storied franchises — played in the inaugural game at London Stadium, and they did something never before seen in the 111-year history of the rivalry: knock both starting pitchers out of the game in the first inning.

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Twenty batters came to the plate during a wild 58-minute, 92-pitch opening frame. There were 12 runs, six by each team, and 10 hits. For the first time since a 1989 game between the Toronto Blue Jays and Oakland Athletics, both teams scored at least six runs in the first inning and had their starters pulled.

Boston's Rick Porcello managed to pitch just a third of an inning, allowing five hits, six runs and one walk. Aaron Hicks hit a two-run homer to spell the end of Porcello's day; Colten Brewer came in to relieve him and finished the top half of the inning. The home run also extended the Yankees' record streak for homers in consecutive games to 30.

New York's Masahiro Tanaka didn't get off to a much better start as he took the mound nearly half an hour after warming up for the game. He made it to two-thirds of an inning, surrendering four hits, six runs and walking a pair. A three-run homer by Michael Chavis tied the game 6-6.

Neither offense simmered down during the four-hour, 42-minute game, which the Yankees won 17-13. New York took what appeared to be an insurmountable 17-6 lead in the sixth inning before Boston scored a run in the bottom of the sixth and six more in the seventh. The Red Sox had a chance to tie with the bases loaded in the eighth before Zack Britton retired Marco Hernandez to end the threat.

Each team batted around twice in the game. Six home runs were hit, and 16 pitchers combined to throw 422 pitches. Amazingly, no errors were committed and the game ended on a Top Plays-worthy double play.

Fox Sports reported that the 30 combined runs were the most in an MLB game this season and trailed only a 31-run game between the two sides in 2009 as the highest-scoring game in the 2,200-game history of the rivalry. The sides also combined for 37 hits, a season-high for a nine-inning game.

English sports fans are used to long, high-scoring cricket matches, but not even they could have expected as wild a game as this. The teams will complete the London Series on Sunday at 10:10 a.m. ET before returning to the U.S.

Thomas Schlarp