(photo c/o Getty Images)
The Yankees and Red Sox kick off tonight’s three-game set at Yankee Stadium with two of the best records in the American League and the Yankees in first place, one game up on Boston. The Yankees are a rather woeful 1-5 against their archrivals thus far this season, although for anyone overly concerned about this performance one simply needs to recall the Bombers’ panic-inducing 0-8 start against the Sox in 2009 that ultimately turned into a 9-9 finish.
Not that the two teams’ early season games aren’t important — they most certainly are — but historically the Red Sox have made something of a habit of beating up on the Yankees in the first half of a given season before the Yankees turn the tables and return the favor from July onward. That being said, it would be nice to see the Yankees make something of a statement this week against the Sox — who have thoroughly outplayed the Bombers in their head-to-head matchups this season — especially after the Sox administered the first-ever three-game sweep of the Yankees in New Yankee Stadium last month amidst New York’s ugliest stretch of the season.
Both teams have played extremely well since the Yankees took their lumps from Boston at home in mid-May — the Yankees have gone 13-6, while the Sox have been even better, at 13-5. The Red Sox have done it with beastly hitting — their team wOBA of .367 over the last two weeks was not only the second-best mark in the AL during that time, but their hot-hitting has finally brought Boston into a tie with the Yankees for top team wOBA in the AL on the season, with both teams sporting a .344 mark — while the Yankees have primarily done it with pitching, as the staff has posted an AL-best 2.91 ERA and 3.33 FIP over the last 14 days.
That’s not to say that either team has struggled on the other side of their respective ledgers — Boston’s pitching staff boasts the 4th-lowest FIP (3.78) in the AL during the last two weeks, although it hasn’t entirely matched up with the results (4.12 ERA), while the Yankees’ .343 wOBA during the last two weeks was also coincidentally 4th-best in the AL and basically right in line with how they’ve been hitting all season.
It’ll be interesting to see how both offenses fare going forward — Boston’s offensive attack obviously started out in a putrid slump during their 0-6 debut, but they have since pounded the ball seemingly better than anyone. The Yankees have seen their team wOBA decline from April, a month that saw them rake at a .355 clip. A quick glance at the two teams’ most commonly used lineups looks like this:
| Red Sox | wOBA | Yankees | wOBA |
| .369 | .297 | ||
| .321 | .407 | ||
| .409 | .394 | ||
| .383 | .374 | ||
| .427 | .360 | ||
| .299 | .311 | ||
| .330 | .286 | ||
| .295 | .358 | ||
| .316 | .317 | ||
| Unweighted Avg. | .350 | Unweighted Avg. | .345 |
By this relatively unscientific measure,the Sox would appear to have the slightly more potent lineup at the moment (interestingly enough, the discrepancy between the two isn’t all that different from the quick-and-dirty side-by-side comparison of the two teams’ Bill James preseason rojections), though now that has finally remembered he’s Carl Crawford, the Sox’s advantage on offense is almost certainly larger than just .005 points of wOBA. Much as it pains me to admit, unless Jeter and Posada miraculously rediscover their once-potent forms, Boston will probably have a better offense for the remainder of the 2011 season.
In tonight’s opener, does battle with Freddy Garcia (3.34 ERA/4.44 FIP/4.04 xFIP). Lester has been surprisingly un-Lester-like this season (3.94 ERA/4.21 FIP/3.52 xFIP), which appears to be primarily due to the near-doubling of his HR/9 from last season. He’s also lost one strikeout per nine, but is still fanning more than 8 men per nine innings, while also boasting a 52% GB% and a shiny 80% strand rate. The Yankees got to him for four surprising runs last time out but as you’ll recall still managed to lose that game. Given Lester’s historical dominance of the Yankees, they’ll be lucky to notch even half that amount this time out. Sweaty Freddy has been as good as one could have hoped for so far this season, but he’ll clearly have his work cut out for him in this mismatch.
The one game the Yankees absolutely must figure out a way to win this week is Wednesday’s contest, in which they face longtime nemesis (4.40 ERA/4.66 FIP/4.72 xFIP), making the start in place of , who owned the Yankees last time out. While Wake and his knuckleball certainly have the ability to shut the Yankee offense down, historically he’s had some trouble with the Bombers, as his 4.90 career ERA against them is his third-worst mark against American League opponents. The Yankees counter with the continually enigmatic (3.86 ERA/4.48 FIP/4.00 xFIP), who hasn’t seen Boston yet this season. Despite pitching reasonably well, Burnett hasn’t exactly been dominant this season and is still prone to the one-blowup-inning – I will be surprised if Burnett’s able to keep the Red Sox offense in check. This game seems destined to be decided by bullpen.
The finale is the third face-off this season of both team’s aces, as will try to exact some measure of revenge against a resurgent , who has beaten Sabathia in both of their previous showdowns. In fact, Beckett has yet to allow a run to the Yankees this season, having thrown 14 straight scoreless innings against them. For as nice a season as Beckett is having — 2.01 ERA/2.91 FIP/3.67 xFIP, 2.1 fWAR — you have to figure the Yankees will finally break that scoreless stretch. Sabathia’s obviously been no slouch himself this season — 2.80 ERA/2.96 FIP/3.51 xFIP, 2.5 fWAR — and truly, the only major blemishes on his ledger are his two starts against Boston, and so between the Yankees being due to finally score on Beckett and CC seemingly due for a strong outing against Boston, hopefully this game tilts in the Yankees’ favor.
Once these games do get to the teams’ respective relief corps’, it’ll be interesting to see who breaks first, as the Yankees and Red Sox boast two of the stronger ‘pens in the league, ranking #1 and #2 respectively in FIP. That being said, to date the Yankee bullpen has been just a tad better at preventing runs, with a tidy 2.78 ERA compared to the Boston relievers’ 4.26 mark, and has also accumulated the second-highest WPA in the AL — 2.48 — compared to Boston’s 0.72.
With both teams playing some of their best baseball of the season, this is going to be a very tough series, but the Yankees — between having home-field advantage and also perhaps slight starting pitching advantages in two of the three games — really should take two of three this week.
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“now that Carl Crawford has finally remembered he’s Carl Crawford, the Sox’s advantage on offense is almost certainly larger than just .005 points of wOBA.”
Not sure I agree with this. Why would we give Crawford credit for returning to form without doing the same for Swisher? Do you expect Ellsbury to out-wOBA Cano? Ortiz to have a wOBA of .420+? I think these two offenses are very, very close, and I really can’t see room to conclude one way or another on them, even if you (rightfully) assume little to no recovery from Posada and Jeter.
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Larry Koestler Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 9:21 am
Totally agree, I almost certainly gave the Yankees short shrift in that assessment, given Swish’s presumed rebound and the likelihood of regression for certain overperformers.
In reality, the offenses are probably about as close to even as it gets, which is par for the course for these two teams in basically every season since 2003.
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Cris Pengiuci Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 11:41 am
“Do you expect Ellsbury to out-wOBA Cano? Ortiz to have a wOBA of .420+?”
The point I take away from the article is not if these 2 will continue at the levels they’re at today (or Swisher for that matter either), but it’s where they are now. The series occurs over the next 3 days, not over the course of the season. Right now, Boston is hot. Fortunately, so are the Yankees. Let’s hope Boston cools off a little and the Yankees maintain the heat!
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Very nice and informative article Larry. Keep up the great work.
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This series is a whole lotta nuthin’ cuz neither team will get swept which means one of them will take two out of three which means the Yankees will be either tied for first place with the Red Sox or only two games ahead of the Red Sox after Thursday night.
I think the pressure is on Boston to sweep and go 8-1 against the Yankees so far this year because say they took two out of three for 7-2 against the Yankees so far this year – great right? Not really. For all that domination, they’d still be only tied with the Yankees for first place. That’s what happens when you start 0-6 then 2-10, lose four in a row last week, and can’t beat anyone outside of the Yankees, Angels, Athletics, and Twins. The Red Sox are a bad team outside of playing those four teams who are their reason for living like this:
Angels 6-2
Yankees 5-1
Athletics 5-0
Twins 3-1
19-4 vs. these four teams, 14-22 vs. everyone else
Boston is not making the postseason this year because they played 2-10 ball in their first dozen games then lost four in a row a short time after that for 2-14 ball and I don’t see them making up for that esp. when they will probably lose four in a row again and maybe do so two more times. How many teams have made the postseason starting 0-6 and 2-10 then losing four in a row two or three more times after that?
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Joe G Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 10:30 am
“Boston is not making the postseason this year because they played 2-10 ball in their first dozen games then lost four in a row a short time after that for 2-14 ball and I don’t see them making up for that esp. when they will probably lose four in a row again and maybe do so two more times.”
I’d say they’ve already made up for that seeing as they are only a game out of first place.
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Duh, Innings! Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 4:27 pm
They just got within a game to square one is all. Let’s see them play good baseball against other teams besides the Yankees, Angels who they don’t face anymore, Twins, and Athletics, last two they face only three more times each. So far I haven’t seen it at 14-22 vs. everyone else.
Those 0-6 and 2-10 starts and the four-game losing streak they had recently will come back to haunt them and again, name me a team who lost four in a row or more three or four times in a season and made the postseason. I can’t. It’s safe to say it’s never happened. Boston has already lost four or more in a row twice through game 59 and will probably lose four straight again at some point. They could do that as early as Friday if they’re swept by the Yankees and they drop the first game of their next series.
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The Yankees should not place too much emotional stock in this series for they draw the Indians and Rangers – two first-place teams – next then face four teams they’re not used to facing – two of them away at hitter-friendly ballparks including a perennial madhouse in Wrigley Field – before three at Citi Field. They lose the DH thus the luxury to give A-Rod, Teixiera etc. a rest from the field for nine games.
After the Mess comes three at Cleveland then Tampa Bay EIGHT of a dozen games 7/7-21 (four at Toronto sandwiched by two four-game series vs. Tampa Bay – first one at home, the second one away.) And the Yankees play their first eight games after the All-Star Break on artificial turf which is always dangerous.
They finally get a break after that with a nine-game homestand vs. the Orioles, Mariners, and Athletics but then it’s 21 of the next 30 games away starting with four at the Chi-Sox and three at Fenway, five at Fenway in this stretch plus one more at Fenway to begin September. The Yankees are away 70% of the time 8/1-9/1. The only saving grace of the August through 9/1 schedule is the only truly tough games will be three vs. TB and six at Boston.
A win tonight ensures the Yankees remain in first place after this series. Two wins is two games up on Boston. A sweep is four games up on Boston. Big deal to all three when you look at the whole picture.
On Boston’s end, they have only three more chances to further beat up on the Twins and only three more chances to further beat up on the Athletics. They’re done facing their recent times punching bag Angels. They face the Yankees only four times in September: 9/1 and 9/23-25 when they and the Yankees should have at least clinched a postseason berth by.
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