Red Sox's 8-0 mark vs. Yanks irrelevant now
The last time the Red Sox and Yankees met, life was different for both teams.
Mark Teixeira was just starting to get hot. Phil Hughes hadn't earned the role of primary set-up man in the New York bullpen. John Smoltz was in the middle of his rehab starts. Victor Martinez was still a member of the Cleveland Indians.
Nine weeks can be a lifetime in baseball. Since June 9-11, the date of the last series, the Sox have cooled and the Yankees have been the hottest team in the league. A lot has changed, making the Red Sox' 8-0 record in head-to-head meetings about as meaningful this season as Bill Lee vs. Graig Nettles.
In the first week of May, we looked at why the Red Sox had been so dominant against the Yankees. Now, with three more months of play to consider, we look at the same variables and decide whether they're still relevant.
1. OLD CONVENTIONAL WISDOM: Boston has a superior bullpen.
In the first two months of the season, the debate raged: should Joba Chamberlain start or serve as the bridge to Mariano Rivera. Now, that seems irrelevant.
Since then, Hughes has emerged as a dominant eighth-inning weapon for Joe Girardi and Chamberlain has begun to fulfill his potential in the rotation.
Meanwhile, both Manny Delcarmen and Ramon Ramirez have, predictably, cooled some since the spring when they were nearly unhittable. Hideki Okajima remains a reliable set-up man and the emergence of hard-throwing Daniel Bard gives the Sox yet another late-inning option.
It isn't so much that the Red Sox pen has faltered; it's more that Hughes has changed the look of the Yankees' relief corps and allowed others to settle back into less significant roles.
NEW CONVENTIONAL WISDOM: The Red Sox still have an edge in depth, but Hughes' arrival has narrowed the gap considerably.
2. OLD CONVENTIONAL WISDOM: Jason Bay has become a Manny Ramirez-like Yankee killer.
Bay has consistently done damage against the Yankees since joining the Red Sox a little over a year ago. Earlier this year, Bay hit three homers and knocked in 12 runs in eight games against the Yankees while compiling a stunning 1.465 OPS against them, a number even Ramirez would admire.
Since then, however, Bay has cooled considerably. He still leads the Red Sox in homers and RBI, but since July 1, he's hit just two homers and knocked in a mere six runs.