For Red Sox fans, there is a “second Opening Day” to the season; the first time their familiar foes from New York line up across the diamond. The first series of the season against the New York Yankees takes on a heightened feeling as if New England takes a collective breath and bears down saying, “Baseball season is officially in full swing.”
The rest of the nation may be sick of the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry, but the beauty of it for New Englanders is, that through all the hype, these games still matter and more often than not, live up to the anticipation that proceeds them.
Over the course of the last decade, despite the Red Sox two World Championships, the Yankees still have the head to head upper hand. Since 2000, the Yankees hold a 88-74 record in the head to head regular season matchup with the Sox. Even ignoring the Sox 5-13 trouncing at the hands of the Yankees in 2001, the Yankees still hold the slight edge.
But how has the first series of the season between the two served as an indication of the sixteen or so games remaining? Interestingly enough, not too well. The Red Sox have owned the first meeting between the two, going 19-9 in the first series of the season from 2000-present.
Of course it would be ignorant to ignore that home field advantage played a big part in the early season results with the Fenway Park hosting seven of the nine series.
The first series of the year between these two has had some memorable games over the years. Maybe none as memorable as the May classic in 2000 that pitted Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens in an epic pitchers duel featuring a ninth inning game winner off the bat of Trot Nixon on a Nationally televised Sunday night game on ESPN.
Looking over the list, the first series of 2005 at Yankee Stadium jumps out as memorable for two reasons. First, it being the first game played in the post-2004 ALCS world and second, for the two blown saves by Mariano Rivera that led to a mock standing ovation upon his return to Fenway Park a few days later on a giddy “Banner Day”.
The one season that may have seen a series that carried a little more weight than others was 2007. The Red Sox sweep of the Yankees behind a save of the green-shirted, unknown commodity Hideki Okajima on a night that Jonathan Papelbon was unavailable set the tone for the season and established Okajima as the bridge to Papelbon who would lock down the other two games of the series.
So, in the grand scheme of things, winning this series doesn’t indicate an “upper hand” on the season series at large, it does give credence to the fact that losing this series could put the Red Sox in a hole against the Yanks that they haven’t proven an ability to climb out of over the decade.