HICKS & CO. HAMMER SOX
AARON BLASTS THREE OF YANKS’ SIX HOMERS IN ROUT AT STADIUM
WE already knew these were the two heavyweight contenders in all of baseball, so maybe it was right that in a week that saw the 30th anniversary of Mike Tyson’s epic 91-second dismantling of Michael Spinks, the Yankees and the Red Sox would exchange alternating haymakers at one another. In the vernacular of the old “Batman” TV series: BAM! — The Yankees kneecapped the Sox behind CC Sabathia Friday, 8-1.
BONK! — The Red Sox stomped Sonny Gray and Chris Sale suffocated the Yankees Saturday, 11-0.
KAPOW! — The Yankees slaughtered David Price, and Luis Severino was his usual genius self against the Sox in a 11-1 series-clincher Sunday.
“That,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said, “is a peek at what we can do when we’re really clicking.”
This one, of course, was as ugly as it was predictable, given Price’s history against the Yankees, given the fact that since he signed his sevenyear, $217 million contract with the Red Sox prior to the 2016 season he has been little more than a glorified batting-practice pitcher against the Yankees. To wit: Nine starts. Forty-seven innings. Thirteen home runs. An 8.43 ERA, and a 1.83 WHIP. You want to put it in stark terms? Against the Yankees, who happen to be the Red Sox’ most ardent foe in most years, and are Alydar to their Affirmed in this year especially, Price is Jason Vargas. And you think the Yankees have some sleepless nights ahead of them pondering pitching Gray against the Sox?
You also have to appreciate how historically generous Price is. He gave up a home run to left field at Yankee Stadium on July 9, 2011 for Derek Jeter’s 3,000th career hit. Eight days shy of seven years later, he allowed a home run to left field for Kyle Higashioka’s first career hit.
“It’s time for me to go back to that drawing board and kind of reinvent myself against these guys,” Price said. “I’m not going to let a bad start define my season.”
The teams will take a breather from each other for a good month, go back to filleting the rest of the sport while they eye each other carefully. These games this weekend weren’t exactly what you would call heart-stoppers or nail-biters but that’s OK, too, because if all goes according to plan there will be plenty of heart-stopping and plenty of nail-biting to go around come October, when it will be about 317 degrees cooler in The Bronx than it was for this weekend’s baseball tribute to hot yoga.
From now until they reconvene Aug. 2 at Fenway Park, the Yankees and Red Sox will both play a raft of mostly overmatched patsies with a couple of mildly interesting diversions thrown in (the Braves and Indians for the Yanks, the Nationals and Phillies for the Sox), but unless something awfully surprising happens between now and then we’re almost certain to see them then the same way we saw them this weekend: with matching gaudy records, looking like Ron Turcotte atop Secretariat looking back at the rest of the American League.
What we took away from this series was simple and it was visceral: both teams can pound the baseball to frightening effect. Both teams have aces — Sale and Severino — who will help making losing streaks all but impossible on either side. The Yankees took two of three this weekend, and have won five of the first nine, but the teams are as closely (and as intriguingly) matched as the records hint that they should be. One other thing, too. As the Yankees were laying their most recent beating on Price, Yankee Stadium hopped and it shook and it throbbed in a way that we’ve only seen on rare occasions. If you closed your eyes, you could almost believe you were back in the old park, with all the old acoustics, where the sound of Red Sox-Yankees could cause your heart to quicken and your pulse to race, April or October, as long as those two ancient combatants were sharing the field.
Even late, in the seventh inning, when both sides had started to sub in their walkons, the crowd of 46,795 was still mostly intact, still chanting for the Yankees, still killing the Sox, still throwing their voices at a baseball season as it cruises down the back stretch. Been a fun ride so far. And the ride has only just begun.