Bronx, N.Y., July 28, 2003 — The coverage was everywhere to see if you checked the right section of the newspapers on Sunday. Here it was the 50th anniversary of the armistice that “temporarily” ended the hostilities that became known as the Korean Conflict, and there was collective dismay and frustration that that hard-fought border was still, after all these years, yet to be founded and established in international treaty.
But there are two groups of people out there who have no trouble believing that a conflict that has seethed that long continues to simmer. Checking the stands in Yankee Stadium three weeks ago as wayward Pedro Martinez pitches had the first two Yankees who had come to bat that day on the way to the hospital for X-rays, or Kevin Millar having gone down two days before, there was overwhelming evidence of a feud in this “East,” the American League East, that has been going on unchecked for 83 years. A hostile Fenway crowd, in turn, was furious with Jeff Weaver during this past Sunday night’s first inning, as star shortstop and Boston hero Nomar Garciaparra tried in vain to shake the pain from his fingers as he made his way to first base.
No, I don’t mean to make light of the troubles and concerns emanating from the Korean Peninsula, and from the very real dangers that fester there as Asian East (P’yongyang) and North American East (Washington) search for a meeting of the minds, however tentative. But the day-in, day-out passion of the Yankees/Red Sox battle, one that has outlasted the lives of most of the people on the planet when it originated, has continued to burn with such a fervor that two Red Sox fans actually told Joe Torre in a hotel elevator this past weekend that if they were given the choice of the United States capturing Saddam Hussein or the Red Sox beating the Yankees, they would choose the latter.
And despite the painful experiences shared by Millar, Jeter, Soriano and Garciaparra, and the incredible ESPN-offered 47/15 Yankees players struck with pitches vs. Red Sox players hit stat, the feud will continue to be played out in two principal arenas. One, of course, will be on the field of play, where the Red Sox have just now won a bitterly contested series, two games to one. The other will be in the hearts and minds of the management and ownership of the two franchises, and in those of the players and the fans of the two teams. Even with the hard-fought victory, the Red Sox organization, its players and fans have to be left wondering why they win so few against their rivals in which they are led by their best pitcher, the guy generally conceded to be the premier player at the position in all of baseball. The Yankees, on the other hand, though pleased to have come back so well in two of the three games on the enemy’s turf, are undoubtedly beside themselves with concern about the total bullpen collapse they suffered late in the third game, just as the entire series was on the line.
Things started very well for the Yanks Sunday night, or at least they did once Jeff Weaver survived the bases-loaded, two-out situation in the first largely precipitated when he struck Garciaparra on the hand. Already ahead 1-0 on Jason Giambi’s booming home run to left center in the frame’s top half, that lead had to feel bigger once Kevin Millar’s soft fly to center landed in Bernie Williams’s glove to end the inning with the Yanks still in front.
Yankee fans of all stripes were engaged in this game. Those who feel that the Jeff Weaver trade is still a good one and that they will be rewarded one day — and soon — when this guy breaks out, grew happier and happier as the innings went by and the Red Sox could mount no attack against him beyond the two first-inning walks, a scratch single and a double into the opposite corner. But the panicky and Weaver-phobic among the faithful found themselves in play too, because as Jeff shut down the Sox inning after inning, he was compiling a pitch count that would eventually contribute mightily to his — and the Yankees’ — undoing.
Weaver faced 26 Red Sox batters Sunday night, and managed to throw first pitch strikes to only 12 of them. His pitch counts in the first five innings (24, 11, 20, 18, 16) were too high, and they became that way because he threw too often and missed. Just last week in the Stadium, the Yankees swept four from the Indians where their other four starters threw strikes at a better than two-to-one ratio over balls. Weaver tossed 48 balls among his 113 pitches, at a too high (almost 43 percent) clip. The number of pitches that missed can be seen even more dramatically in an inning-by-inning breakdown, as Jeff threw the same amount of balls as strikes in three of those five innings. In 27-plus innings against the Tribe last week, Jeff’s four counterparts did that a total of one time.
But if Yankee fans are going to worry about the work of Jeff Weaver, their fifth starter, the ecstatic Red Sox faithful would be wise to be concerned with the pitching of their titular no. two starting pitcher, Derek Lowe, in such a big game. Although he did manage a 17-12 first-pitch strikes to balls ratio, his inning-by-inning count was even worse than Weaver’s, with fully 45 percent of his pitches missing the zone. Derek threw just as many balls as strikes in the second (nine/nine), and the fifth (five/five), one less ball in the third (13/14) and one more ball in the sixth (8/7). In Lowe’s defense it could be argued that he did keep the ball down as is his strategy, but he walked three, hit one and five of the eight base hits against him were ground balls, a product of an infield lacking range on the right, and suffering from Nomar’s shading continuously up the middle on the left.
I have a Red Sox friend (meaning there must be hope in Korea yet) who feels this series was ground-breaking, and that the fact that the Red Sox managed to win it by taking the last two is something that they can build on that they haven’t had before. He was so sincere and believed so strongly what he was saying that rather than answer him by settling for the easy Yankee fan taunts, I thought I would give his theory a little statistical analysis. I looked at Red Sox/Yankees series over the last seven years (before this one), that period we Yankee fans giddily refer to as the Joe Torre era. I decided to track how well the teams played in the 10 games following a series where one of them had won or lost the last two games.
The Red Sox have won the last two games of a series with the Yankees five times in seven years, the situation my friend sees as a positive for them now. But they haven’t played well in the 50 games that followed those five series, as the Sox have put together only a 27-23 mark. On the other hand, the Yankees have gone out and won 33 of the 50 games that comprise the 10 contests they played after losing the last two to the Sox, thereby gaining six games in the standings on Boston. My friend needs a new theory (or a new team).
Ironically, his theory works if we examine the 11 series from 1996 through 2002 where the Yankees won the last two games. The Yankees have won 61 and lost 49 when one counts the 10 games each after those series, while the Sox have followed up the pain of losing to the Yanks by posting a better 64-46 mark. Do you suppose they want to reconsider and declare us the winner Sunday night?
I didn’t think so.
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!