EVEN-STEVEN
Last year, these archrivals played the standard 18 games, and each squad came away with nine wins. Home field wasn’t particularly helpful to either side, as the Sox and Yanks both went 4-5 on friendly turf in 2010.
The first two meetings of the 2011 season have been more of the same, with Boston winning the opener 9-6 on Friday night – for its first win of the season after an 0-6 start – and New York bouncing back Saturday for a 9-4 victory.
That said, Boston is 6-3 in the last nine meetings overall, winning three in a row at Fenway before Saturday’s setback.
PITCHERS LESS THAN PERFECT
New York sends out ace left-hander CC Sabathia tonight, while Boston counters with righty Josh Beckett. Neither has particularly strong career numbers in this rivalry.
Beckett is 10-7 lifetime in 22 starts against the Pinstripes, with a 6.26 ERA. He made five starts against New York last year and didn’t fare well, going 1-2 with a bloated 10.04 ERA. At Fenway Park, Beckett was opposite Sabathia last April 4 in a 9-7 Sox win, allowing five runs in 4 2/3 innings. A month later at home, he got blistered by New York, yielding nine runs – all earned – in 5 1/3 innings of a 10-3 beatdown.
Sabathia, meanwhile, is a middling 6-5 in 15 career starts against the BoSox, though with a much more respectable ERA of 3.45 in those games. In 2010, he made four starts against Boston, going 1-0 with a trio of no decisions and a 3.96 ERA, averaging just over six innings per game.
Fenway Park, however, was a bit rough for the hefty lefty. In two starts there last year, Sabathia was 0-0 with an inflated 7.20 ERA, mostly due to the aforementioned 9-7 loss last April, in which he allowed six runs (five earned) in 5 1/3 innings. A month later in Boston, he allowed three runs in 4 2/3 innings, but the Yanks put up 11 runs over the final five frames of a 14-3 rout.
PITCHING .750
On a more positive note for Sabathia, the Yankees are 42-14 in his last 56 starts overall and 21-7 in his last 28 stints against losing teams. And yes, despite their status as an AL favorite, the Sox are a losing team at this point.
RUNNING UP THE SCORE
One of the more sure things in this rivalry of late: Lots of runs on the scoreboard. The over has been the play in seven of the last eight clashes overall, including the last five in a row. And in the last 54 Yankees-Sox contests in Boston, the over is a robust 39-15-1.
Some more overkill: With Beckett taking the ball, the over is on streaks of 5-0-1 against the Yanks, 4-1 at home against New York and 8-2-1 against winning teams. The over is also on surges for Boston of 9-3 overall and 5-0 at Fenway. And for New York, the over is on sprees of 19-7-1 overall, 6-0 in division play, 8-2-1 on the highway and 5-0 behind Sabathia.
