The Yankees haven’t had much luck against their long-time rivals this season, but last night all that seemed to change:
The Yankees will get back to baseball now, as much as that is possible in their supercharged rivalry with the Boston Red Sox. By thrashing the Red Sox on Thursday, 13-6, they hacked through the thick hype, brushed off the questions about their grit and asserted themselves atop the American League East.
Their lead is three and a half games over the Red Sox, meaning that no matter what happens in the rest of this four-game series, the Yankees will finish it in first place. For now, they have matched their biggest lead of the season, and the next three starters, A. J. Burnett, C. C. Sabathia and Andy Pettitte, will try to add on.
In the first Yankee Stadium sellout since opening day, a feisty crowd of 49,005 saw the Yankees beat the Red Sox for the first time in nine meetings this season. The fans also saw the proud Boston veteran John Smoltz dissolve on the mound in an eight-run fourth inning.
“That team’s in second place, and we’ve got to beat that team,” said the Yankees’ Mark Teixeira. “For us to get that big inning and get a little bit of a cushion, it made everybody — and probably the fans, too — have a sigh of relief.”
See, I like that, Teixeria calling Boston “that team”, sort of like the way Woody Hayes would refer to Michigan as “That School Up North” during his time as Ohio State.
Three more games to go in the series and, if they win, the Yankees could go a long way toward putting the AL East in their back pocket.
