Statis-Pro Yankees Showdown Crush Red Sox Twice, 12-5 and 6-2

 Game 1 - Yankees 12, Red Sox 5. As nice as the 12-5 Yankees win in Fenway was against their archival Red Sox, the downside is it did not count as a sweep in our league rules, because a team must lead by 5 runs after 8 innings, and it was only 9-5 at this time.

It also showed the Yankees one weakness in this game, a weak bullpen that gave up a 4-run 8th to blow the sweep. Juan Soto and  Jazz Chisholm Jr. both reached base four times including homers, and Gleyber Torres, Giancarlo Stanton and Ben Rice joined them to make it five Yankees with a home run in the bloout.

Carlos Rodón and Nestor Cortes are the best 2nd and 3rd rotation pitcher combo in our game with a PB 2-9 and PB 2-8 (top 5% of all pitchers and best 15% of all pitchers based on WAR divided by innings itched).

Game 2 - Yankees 6, Red Sox 2. As nice as it was to have Jazz Chisholm Jr. homer for a 2nd straight game as his 6th hit in 6 at bats to lead 2-game domination of the Red Sox, there was some frustration (see photos of both box scores at the bottom). In both games the Yankees dominated but led by exactly 4 runs at the end of the 8th inning meaning both games counted as 2 games to 1 win as opposed to 3 games to none if they had one more run in each of the two games to go 6-0 for the series.

The wins still put the Yankees back in our playoffs if the Statis-Pro season ended today.  The Yankees are 11-13 in our league but we have a Strength of Schedule built into our league rules so you don't have to balance the schedule - and the Yankees have played by far the hardest schedule to get a +3 for playing both the Orioles and the Astros so far. That means we adjust their wins by the +3 and they officially are 14-13 for a 0.519 winning percentage.

The Red Sox meanwhile are only 6-12, and even though they get the historically bad White Sox next, they have the only -2 for SOS, meaning the Red Sox will lose 2 wins after the series so they really need to win the series 4-2 to at least break even (it would count as 2-2 with the adjustment.). For now the Yanks are back in the playoffs as a wild card, but trail the Orioles as the best of the 12 teams in our league at 15-5 for a 0.75.

East Pod	W	L	SOS+-	AdjW	AdjL	AdjW%
Baltimore	13	5	2	15	5	0.750
NY Yankees	11	13	3	14	13	0.519
Boston	6	12	0	6	12	0.333

Here is our pregame account:

If you want to set up your own matchup for the greatest rivalry in baseball and one of the greatest in the world - you can pull up the Yankees and Red Sox as we are about to do. 

Click here for links to all the current players as well as the 60 all-time great Statis-Pro baseball teams, and here are the instructions to play your own games.

Of the 19 pitchers with two starts in our game, Cortes has allowed only 1 earned run in 10 innings for the 3rd best ERA of 0.90. The Yanks No. 4 starter Stroman is right behind him at 1.38, while surprisingly it was the ace Cole who had a bad first start against the Astros so if further down. 

Rnk	2-start Pitchers	IP	ER	ERA
1	Gilbert - Sea	13	0	0.00
2	Senga - NYM	14	0	0.00
3	Cortes - NYY	10	1	0.90
4	Stroman - NYY	13	2	1.38
5	Manaea - NYM	5	1	1.80
6	Lopez - Min	13.3	3	2.03
7	Burnes - Balt	13	3	2.08
8	Ryan - Min	12.3	4	2.93
9	McKenzie - Cle	12	4	3.00
10	Rodon - NYY	12	4	3.00
11	Ober - Min	11.7	4	3.08
12	Baz - TB	7	3	3.86
13	Maneau - NYM	4	2	4.50
14	Giolito - Bost	11.3	6	4.78
15	Paddack - Min	9	5	5.00
16	Cole - NYY	11	8	6.55
17	Kirby - Sea	10	8	7.20
18	Verlander - Hou	9.3	8	7.74
19	Walter - Bost	6.3	10	14.29
	Total of these pitchers	197.3	76	3.47
	Total of 1-start pitchers	196	99	4.55
	Total of All Pitchers	393.3	175	4.00

We set up for the box score using the numbers on the cards in the game. The Red Sox will start their 1st and 4th best starting pitchers, and against the righty in game 1 we will start Ben Rice at first base against the righty, and in the 2nd game back at Yankee Stadium we will play DJ LeMahieu at first base against the lefty.

The Yankees will start their 2nd and 3rd best pitchers, which works out well because the Red Sox have a lot of left handed batters in their line-up, and don't really have good enough alternates to platoon. The other team in this pod is the Baltimore Orioles, who are in 1st of the three right now.

We will fill in the box score later, but here are the line-ups, two starting pitchers for the series, and then top five relievers for each team.
 

2024 NY Yankees	OPS	Bats	Pos	HR	AB	R	H	RBI	Other
Jazz Chisholm Jr. (fr MIA)	0.764	LP	C	25-32
Juan Soto	0.960	LP	DH	23-31
Aaron Judge	0.954	RP	RF	21-31
Yankee Stadium (11-57 HR)	OPS	Bats		HR
Gleyber Torres	0.797	RP	2b	27-33
Giancarlo Stanton	0.776	RP	LF	18-26
Ben Rice (Temp #4)	0.746	LN	1b	27-31
DJ LeMahieu	0.719	RN	3b	27-31
Yankee Stadium (11-57 HR)	OPS	Bats		HR
Austin Wells	0.709	LP	3b	23-26
Anthony Volpe	0.710	RN	SS	22-26
Trent Grisham	0.727	LP	CF	21-24
Yankees Series Starters	ERA	Th	PB	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K
Carlos Rodón	3.82	L	2'-9
Nestor Cortes	4.02	L	2'-8
NY Yankees Best Relief Cards	ERA	Th	PB
Clay Holmes	3.54	R	2'-7
Chase Hampton	4.66	R	4'-7
Jonathan Loáisiga	3.73	R	4'-7
Will Warren	4.36	R	4'-7
Enyel De Los Santos (fr SD)	3.92	R	2'-6
2024 Boston Red Sox	OPS	Bats	Pos	HR	AB	R	H	RBI	Other
Jarren Duran	0.742	LN	CF	31-33
Tyler O'Neill	0.799	RP	RF	26-32
Rafael Devers	0.881	LP	3b	28-36
Bos (Fenway Park HR 11-54)	OPS	Bats	Pos	HR
Triston Casas	0.853	LP	1b	25-32
Masataka Yoshida	0.818	LN	LF	34-37
Vaughn Grissom	0.775	RN	DH	34-36
Bos (Fenway Park HR 11-54)	OPS	Bats	Pos	HR
Trevor Story	0.733	RN	SS	25-31
Adalberto Mondesi	0.667	SN	2b	27-31
Danny Jansen	0.781	RP	C	22-28
Boston Starters	ERA	Th	PB	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K
Lucas Giolito	4.56	R	2'-7
Brandon Walter	4.69	L	2'-7
Boston Best Relief Cards	ERA	Th	PB
Chris Martin	3.86	R	2'-7
James Paxton (fr LAD)	4.32	L	2'-7
Tanner Houck	4.43	R	2'-7
Garrett Whitlock	3.81	R	2'-7
Kenley Jansen	4.16	R	2'-7

Results will be added after the games and headline will be added.