Yankees-Sox now feels like small ball

Each team went about constructing an offense for 2014 in completely different ways, the Yankees flexing their financial might, the Red Sox flaunting their scouting-and-development intellect.

Unfortunately for both, the results so far are identically awful.

And so we have a Yankees-Red Sox series on a late June weekend, prime baseball-watching time, that couldn’t be more yawn-inspiring.

If only the Yankees could trade for David Price, pronto, and have him renew hostilities with David Ortiz, in the name of creating some intrigue for The Rivalry.

Because it’s hard to remember a time when there was less reason to be jazzed about watching these teams get after one another.

I know, I know, it has become something of a cliché to compare the state of The Rivalry to the days of 2003-04, when the heroes-and-villains star power was topped only by the in-game intensity. We’ll probably never see anything quite like that again.

But right now feels like a new low since then, as the Yankees are mediocre, the Red Sox are worse, and both do so little with the bats that often their games can put you to sleep.

In the case of the Sox, it’s hard to believe that only a year ago they had the most relentless offense in baseball, grinding out at-bats up and down the lineup that wore pitchers out and scored the most runs of any team in the majors.

Now they’re 13th in the American League in runs scored, and 12t h in home runs. Why? Well, for starters they let Jacoby Ellsbury go to the Yankees without a fight, apparently believ ing that Jack ie Bradley Jr. was ready to fill the void in center field.

Instead the comebacking Grady Sizemore won the job out of spring training, but the magic ran out fairly quickly for him and he has been released, leaving the Sox waiting for Bradley and his .211 batting average to blossom.

The problems run deeper, obviously. The Sox miss sparkplug Shane Victor ino, who has missed most of the season with leg and back injuries, and remains out after re-aggravating the back injury this week.

Dustin Pedroia, meanwhile, hasn’t hit like his usual All-Star self: he’s at .265 with four home runs. As for their other homegrown hopefuls, Xander Bogaerts hasn’t been the instant star it seemed he might be a year ago, while Will Middlebrooks has been injured and ineffective, forcing the Sox to finally re-sign Stephen Drew a month ago.

And Drew hasn’t exactly been an answer so far, hitting .122 in 49 at-bats.

Yet with all of those problems, you can make a case the Sox have a better chance than the Yankees of busting out in the second half, as Ortiz is still hitting for power and Mike Napoli is back after dealing with an assortment of injuries.

However, at least two AL scouts who have seen them regularly don’t believe the Red Sox have any kind of secondhalf run in them, feeling they’re mired in a classic championship-hangover mode.

“You could see this com ing,” sa id one, “not just because everything went right for them last year, but because their success had so much to do with their attitude. They brought in those grinders last year who raised the intensity for everybody and as a team they played hard every day and battled their tails off in every at-bat.

“It’s hard to play with that same edge after you win it all, and I think that’s what you’re seeing this year.”

The Yankees, of course, would love to have such an excuse. Ellsbury aside, their freeagent signings, from big-ticket items Carlos Beltran and Brian McCann to patchwork ty pes Brian Roberts and Kelly Johnson, simply haven’t produced.

Whatever the arguments for and against, the Yankees are paying for letting their best player, Robinson Cano, leave as well.

And as a result, they have been only a shade better than the Red Sox offensively, ranking 12th in runs scored and 10th with 63 home runs. The stunning lack of power has negated their usual advantage at Yankee Stadium, where they are 17-18, compared to 23-19 on the road.

“Let’s face it,” said an AL scout, “as good as Beltran was in St. Louis, the Yankees took a chance on him at his age, with his injury history. And I think we all overlooked some age-and-injury slippage with McCann the last couple of years. They could both have big second halves, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”

So that’s where we are with the Yankees and Red Sox. The pitching hasn’t been great either, with the obvious exception of Masahiro Tanaka, but it hasn’t been the root of their problems, and both teams have strong bullpens.

Nope, it’s about of fensive plans gone wrong for both teams. Which makes them not only bad, or at least semi-bad, but boring.