Four Games

The D***Yankees lead the Red Sox by four games in the American League East. A look at these team's records against other teams reveals where we've lost ground. If you think about it, 4 games out of 146 isn't many, and the two teams' records are surprisingly similar, with a few noteworthy exceptions.

Opponent	Red Sox Record	Yankees Record	Sox +/-
Anaheim	6-3	6-3	0
Baltimore	7-8	8-4	-2.5
Chicago	4-2	1-2	+1.5
Cleveland	2-1	5-2	-1
Detroit	8-1	5-1	+1.5
Kansas City	5-1	4-2	+1
Minnesota	2-4	7-0	-4.5
Oakland	3-4	3-6	+1
Seattle	5-2	5-4	+1
Tampa Bay	8-4	8-4	0
Texas	5-4	4-5	+1
Toronto	10-9	10-9	0
National League	11-7	13-5	-2
Head to Head	9-10	10-9	-1
Total	90-56	86-60	-4

As you can see, the total deficit isn't even as big as our deficit against Minnesota alone, whom the Yankees owned but we foundered against. Also, the Red Sox have better records against 4 of the other teams in the AL above .500, while the Yankees are better only against Minnesota (Toronto is a wash). If Boston's games against Baltimore had come out more predictably, we could be tied with the Yankees today. All of this emphasizes the length of the baseball season - those sloppy losses in May really come back to bite you when games are in short supply on September 13th!

Thanks to ESPN for the data.