Red Sox vs. Yankees. It’s a battle of light vs. darkness. Of good vs. evil. Of life vs. death itself.
Except the Yankees aren’t even as evil as the Rays anymore. They’re less of an immediate threat than the O’s or Blue Jays. They don’t give us the same sense of “jilted lover” as the Cubs. Hell, they might even be more likable than the Cardinals.
What has happened to this rivalry?
There are still some Yankees who are fun to hate, for sure. A-Rod has become self-parody. Mark Teixeira is an annoying horse robot. Jacoby Ellsbury is a beautiful human being who I miss IS A TRAITOR! The Evil Empire certainly isn’t soft and cuddly these days.
But there’s no denying that much of the hatred and vitriol that defined Red Sox/Yankees match-ups in the 2000s is absent from today’s bouts. This lull in the action affords us the opportunity to reach across the aisle and try to understand how our misguided brethren feel about a Red Sox squad that, in the estimation of most outside the tri-state area, has a better shot of reaching the playoffs than do the Yankees.
With this in mind, I asked BP Bronx‘s Managing Editor, strong Twitter follow and my counterpart, Nick Shlain, to tell me three things that stood out to him about the 2015 Red Sox. I returned the favor for Nick here.
Here’s how Nick responded:
Joe Kelly
In the second inning of Saturday’s game, Kelly actually allowed Yankee hitters to reach base and even score. Alex Rodriguez lead-off the inning with a single. Garrett Jones walked and, after a wild pitch moved up the runners, John Ryan Murphy also walked loading the bases. Didi Gregorius drove in a run with a sacrifice fly. Kelly then retired the next 16 men that came to the plate in order, which was surprising because of Kelly’s track record and that he appeared so close to falling apart in that second inning.
Kelly has the stuff to establish himself as a mid-rotation starter, yet his struggles with his command have stood in the way. That wasn’t the case on Saturday, as Kelly had everything working. His career groundball rate is above 50 percent yet he induced just two groundball outs, though he did strike out eight of the 24 batters he faced on the day (16 percent career strikeout rate). Obviously, missing more bats is always going to be good for a pitcher, but this kind of marked improvement early in the season is really something to take note of because the way this Red Sox team was constructed a breakout from one of their starting pitchers could make their season.
Xander Bogaerts looks much improved defensively
It’s only been a few games and I’m just going off of the eye test while watching the games on television, but Bogaerts looks a lot better playing shortstop so far. He had some problems at the position last year and it clearly affected other aspects of his game when the Red Sox moved him to third base. It seems as if Bogaerts has put those issues behind him and they’ll be laid to rest for good should his good defensive play continue. He seems more comfortable at the position overall and this was evident in the bottom of the 11th inning of Friday night’s game. With runners on first and second, Bogaerts went deep into the five hole and still had the presence of mind to get the force out at third base instead of trying to throw the ball across the diamond. This is the type of progression you want to see from a young player. He’s still only 22, but looks like a star in the making.
Ugh, why do I find myself not absolutely hating all of these guys?
Yankees fans hate the Red Sox. It’s no secret. Sometimes they might act like they don’t, but that’s just to further annoy and get under the skin of Red Sox fans. They hate you and you know it. It’s easy to hate the Red Sox when they’re contending, seemingly have a roster full of bearded weirdos, have Jonathan Papelbon, or just when they’re beating the Yankees. This year, somehow, I find this version of the Boston team infinitely more likeable than previous teams. I attribute a lot of this to Mookie Betts and Bogaerts occupying feature roles. It’s going to be hard work for anyone in the right mind to hate those guys, except, of course, when they torture the Yankees for many years to come. And I can’t hate Hanley Ramirez. Do you follow him on Instagram? Well, you probably should. Anyway, it’s kind of nice and weird to not absolutely hate this Red Sox team right from the jump. I really tried.