Leading Off: Boston Red Sox
The rivalry returns to Fenway (AP).
The Yankees are on a roll and head to Beantown for their first series in Boston of the year and their biggest series this season. If they can win this series, they are effectively back in the division race, and their bats are heating up at just the right time. Can the boys outbop the Sox? Is it Hot Gary Summer even in New England? Will I get beaten up at Fenway? All these questions and more are answered right here!
2021 Red Sox So Far
The 2021 Red Sox have been way more successful than anyone thought they would be. After finishing with one of the worst records in the league last year, Boston sits in second in the AL East with a 44-31 record, trailing Tampa by half a game. They currently lead the second wild card spot. The Red Sox can attribute their turnaround to a few factors. First, there’s no way that they should have been as bad as they were last year, as their pitching staff had an all time meltdown and was bound to recover. Second, their high powered offense recovered from being merely average last year to elite this year. Indeed, many of the Red Sox games involve the offense outscoring the pitching in high scoring games. Lastly, the return of Alex Cora to the Boston dugout has allowed the Red Sox to continue whatever cheating methods they were employing before he was fired. Don’t underestimate the levels to which the Boston players will go to cheat.
The Boston offense is the most dangerous part of the team, as they rank second in the league in runs scored behind the Astros, although they only rank seventh in the league in home runs. This shows a diversity in how they can beat teams - they don’t have to hit the long ball to win unlike some teams we know. The offensive troika of Xander Boegarts, JD Martinez and Rafael Devers all have OPS’s above .900 and carry the bulk of the hitting load. The Yankees know firsthand how good these hitters can be - consider this monster shot from Devers last Saturday.
Alex Verdugo, Hunter Renfroe and *rubs eyes* Christian Arroyo (?) are also offensive weapons. That’s a lot of good hitters and have made Boston’s lineup the reason for its success this year.
The Red Sox pitching is...good enough to get by, I suppose. It’s certainly not as bad as it was last year, that’s for sure. Boston ranks eighth in the league in ERA, which is passable when it’s supported by an offense as good as theirs. Nathan Eovaldi, Nick Pivetta, Garett Richards and Martin Perez are all basically the same pitcher - low upside, high floor, low 4.00s ERA. It does show the value of not being terrible at any position. The starting staff has certainly been carried by a greatly improved bullpen that has been cobbled together from assorted odds and ends. Some ex-Yankees (Adam Ottavino and Garrett Whitlock) join Matt Barnes, Josh Taylor, and Darwinzon Hernandez in providing above average pitching in the later half of games, even though Barnes did blow a save against the Yankees two weeks ago. Gary Sanchez is also going yard off of Darwinzon Hernandez. You heard it here first.
Pitching Matchups:
Game 1: Domingo German vs. Martin Perez
Martin Perez is Not A Good Pitcher. He has a 4.32 ERA but that hides some underlying stats that are much worse than the top level ERA suggests. Let’s take a look at his Baseball Savant page to see how his numbers look.
Well, at least his exit velocity allowed isn’t too bad!
Perez has been a rotation filler for the Sox for a few years now and hasn’t impressed in any of them. He actually had a 3.09 ERA at the beginning of June, but his 12.96 ERA since then has hurt his overall stats. Perez is the kind of pitcher the Yankees should be all over and in fact they have been all over him in the past, to the tune of a 7.92 career ERA against. That’s not ideal.
Facing Perez will be Domingo German, who also has been Not Great in June, with a 7.12 ERA. That’s mostly based off of his rough start against the Phillies, although he didn’t pitch so well against Oakland last weekend either. German faced the Sox two weeks ago and pitched well, only allowing one run in 5.2 innings, although took the loss due to some bullpen shortcomings. Hopefully his offense can actually support him this time.
Game 2: Jordan Montgomery vs. Nathan Eovaldi
Hello again, our old friend Nate Eovaldi. The former Yankee is in his fourth season with Boston and has actually been quite good and durable this year, leading the league in starts and pitching to a mid 3.00s ERA. One of the more surprising things has been how well Eovaldi has rebounded from a down and injury prone 2019, as it seemed like he was cooked after the 2018 postseason taxed him. Eovaldi is a fireballer, throwing heat by batters and doing a good job at limiting contact and home runs especially. His 0.3 HR/9 rate is lowest in the league, and while it may seem unsustainable, he has shown a skill set that actually could sustain it. Eovaldi faced the Yankees at the beginning of June and allowed two runs in six innings during the Red Sox sweep at the Stadium. He has pitched very well against them recently - take a look at this outing.
Whoops, my bad - guess I thought he was actually good against New York!
This time, he will face Jordan Montgomery, coming off a fine outing against Oakland. Monty is 4-0 with a 3.57 ERA in June and missed Boston the first time out, but has a 4.13 career ERA against them, which is honestly pretty good against that high powered offense.
Game 3: Gerrit Cole vs. Eduardo Rodriguez
E-Rod is the longest tenured Red Sox pitcher and was the Red Sox de facto ace when Chris Sale went down with injuries in 2019, but dealt with a scary bout of COVID-19 last year that caused him to miss the entire 2020 season. Since his return, it has been obvious that he hasn’t been the same pitcher, carrying a 6.21 ERA through his first 13 starts this year. Rodriguez is the most prominent example of a player suffering negative effects from the respiratory illness and we wish him the best and hope to see him competing at a high level again soon. In his start against Tampa on Monday, Rodriguez gave up five runs in six innings, continuing his tough 2021. E-Rod has always been tough on the Yankees, pitching to a 3.94 ERA against them in his career. Opposing him for the first time in 2021 will be Gerrit Cole, who will look to clinch a series sweep for the Yankees (probably). Cole has been nails for the Yankees all year and will look to continue that trend against the team’s biggest rivals. Against the Royals on Tuesday, Cole gave up only two runs in seven innings, but was robbed of a win by his bullpen. His spin rates were down, leading to mass hysteria, but if two runs in seven innings is what happens without sticky stuff, I think we can all be happy with that.
Yankees vs. Red Sox History
Oh boy, do these teams have history! Years and years of history, in fact. We don’t need to go through the highlights of Yankees-Red Sox over the years, as you’re probably familiar with most of the games already. What’s that? Is that Aaron Boone’s music I hear?
It never gets old, I’ll tell you. Good thing they cancelled the subsequent season because of the embarrassment Sox fans felt over that one.
This year’s history is irrelevant (Yankees are 0-3 vs. Boston, but this is a different team than two weeks ago), but tonight is the first time the Yankees will play in front of fans at Fenway since September 9th, 2019. James Paxton pitched seven innings of scoreless ball and Austin Romine homered to clinch a 5-0 Yankees win over Boston. I was at that game and I will be at this one too - a lot of time has passed since then!
Thoughts Before the Series
As mentioned above, this is the Yankees’ first trip to Fenway with fans in the stands since September 2019 and it is a hotly anticipated game for all parties involved. The tables have turned quite a bit since that time, as the Yankees have gone from AL East heir apparent to third place stragglers. Meanwhile, the Red Sox have gone from the peak of baseball to the bottom of the league and back again (the speed with which they vacillate between contender and pretender is quite impressive). If the Yankees want to rewrite the narrative about their struggles vs. Boston and Tampa this year, this is the perfect time to start. The Yankees will play the Red Sox eleven different times over the next five weeks and going anything less than 6-5 (at the absolute minimum) probably loses them the division. For the past year, the Yankees have rolled over at the first sign of adversity, but have finally shown some fight recently against talented opponents. Will they be able to complete the comeback and get back in the division (and playoff) race? Time to step up and prove that you’re worthy in front of the most hostile crowd you’re going to face all year. I will do all I can to keep the Boston fans at bay, but my screaming can only go so far!
Boy, does the return of Luke Voit change the complexion of this Yankees lineup. I know it’s only one player, but the lineup is so much deeper when you add his bat to Stanton, Judge and Sanchez. Voit homered in his first at bat back, hit a walk off double in his second game, and homered again in his third game. If he keeps hitting like this, the Yankees have a hitter who, besides Judge, brings an unmatched power/patience combination. We have seen signs of offensive life over the last few weeks for New York, but it seems like the return of Voit and the rebound of DJ are the two keys to this lineup. As I mentioned on the podcast a few weeks ago, the Yankees succeeded in 2019 when most of the other key hitters went down thanks to the contributions of those two hitters and in 2020, they were the home run and batting champs respectively. In his first three games back, Voit went 4 for 13 with 2 home runs and 3 RBI. In his last two weeks of baseball, DJ is batting .314/.386/.549 with 3 home runs and 10 RBI - numbers straight from the 2019-2020 LeMahieu playbook. The Yankees should be running out their A Lineup tonight for the series opener and it could be the closest we’ve seen to a fully operational Death Star this year, thanks to the return of our boppin boy Luke Voit.
Keys to the series? Keep the Boston Big Three (Bogaerts, Devers, and Martinez) off the basepaths. The Red Sox offense can make you pay for any mistakes you leave over the plate, especially the aforementioned trio, and it would behoove the Yankees to not give them too much to hit. The Yankees will have their best three pitchers (German, Montgomery and Cole) lined up for this series, so they have the best possible opportunity to take the series. They just need to make sure that their pitchers are giving them length to not overtax the bullpen and to pitch the Red Sox hitters with the appropriate caution. This is the biggest series of the season so far - it’s time to actually play like it instead of wilting in the spotlight, as has been the case so far this year for this Yankees team.
Game time is 7:05 tonight - be there or be screaming Boston Sucks from your couch. Either way, let’s go Yankees!
