People of London, what you saw today isn’t typical of a Major League Baseball game.
Along the hitter friendly confines of London Stadium, the Yankees and Red Sox combined for 30 as the Yankees got the better end of the Red Sox when it was all said and done and won 17-13.
Everything fell in line for the hitters. Because this is usually the home of English soccer team West Ham United, the dimensions were 330 feet down the lines and 385 feet in center field. Along with that, foul territory on both sides was freaking massive but that didn’t really factor into the score.
Both teams scored six runs in the first inning and each team scored six runs one more time later in the game. Both teams hit three home runs including Aaron Hicks hitting the first MLB homer in Europe.
Aaron Hicks makes history!
The @Yankees OF hits the first MLB HR in Europe! #LondonSeries pic.twitter.com/ycoyn71kdj
— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) June 29, 2019
After the Red Sox answered with a first inning home run of their own, the scoring slowed down a bit but they still scored. The Yankees combined for 11 runs in the third, fourth, and fifth innings while the Red Sox got a run in the sixth and then six runs in the seventh.
With the score 17-13 in the bottom of the eighth, the Red Sox had a chance to tie things with the bases loaded and two outs. While the pitching was suspect for both teams, Zack Britton settled down and got Marco Hernandez to ground out and keep the lead. The Yankees would end the game on a double play.
The 17-13 scoreline was bizarre to see but it wasn’t nearly the highest scoring game in MLB history (49 runs in 1922) but it was the highest scoring Yankees-Red Sox game ever. The 30 runs broke a rivalry record that stood since 1903 (29 runs).
To put this in perspective, it took West Ham United and their opponents 10 games last season to score 30 goals in London Stadium, and it took them four months to accomplish that. In the 24 NFL games held within London, the Yankees and Red Sox scored more points than the combined totals in three of those games. And they play again on Sunday.
Despite the game lasting nearly five hours, it didn’t seem to deter the fans in attendance. If two teams can combine for 30 runs, being at the ballpark for that long doesn’t seem that bad. New fans should just know that if they’re watching a game taking place on the other side of the pond, it’s not going to be that high scoring.
