Major League Baseball

Win $1,000 with the FOX Super 6 Late Inning Challenge on Red Sox vs. Yankees

Updated Jul. 17, 2021 6:34 p.m. ET

By Kevin Cooney
Special to FOX Sports

To this point, Red Sox-Yankees hasn’t exactly been a fair fight.

Through seven games in the 2021 season, Boston is 7-0 with a run differential of +23 (40-17). Add the Yankees' COVID-19 issues that move Aaron Judge and Gio Urshela out of the lineup, the looming trade deadline and New York's fading playoff prospects, and you have a full-blown crisis alert going throughout the Bronx.

Boston and the Tampa Bay Rays have a chance to put the Yankees away in the next few weeks. The two sides have six games against each other in the next nine days, with New York also staring at three in Tampa before the end of the month. And when you have a chance to knock the Yankees out, you better take advantage of it.

Enjoy Red Sox-Yankees with the FOX Super 6 app on Saturday (7:15 p.m. ET, FOX) from Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. Gerrit Cole looks to follow his epic, complete-game shutout last Saturday against the Houston Astros when he faces Boston’s Nathan Eovaldi. And if you correctly answer all six questions in the MLB Late Inning Challenge, you can win $1,000. It’s easy and free to play on your phone or mobile device.

Here are six things you should know about the Yankees and Red Sox.

Road warriors and home alone

If anything tells you right now about the state of the two franchises, it's one simple set of numbers. Boston is 28-17 away from Fenway Park. Those 28 road wins are tied with that of the San Francisco Giants for most in the sport. The Yankees are 23-23 at home – tied for 19th in home wins. Their .700 OPS in the Bronx is just 21st in the game for a home team.

Cole-blooded

We talked about the Red Sox’s dominance in this series this year, and its outing against Cole on June 27 is a prime example of it. A five-inning outing saw the Red Sox score six runs (five earned) off the Yankees' ace and chase him in a 9-2 win at Fenway. Given the moment for New York, the Yankees need a supreme performance from Cole on Saturday.

Nathan’s famous

Eovaldi has seen the Yankees twice this season, and he has been stellar in both appearances, going 2-0 with just two earned runs in 13 2/3 innings (1.32 ERA) and striking out 13 while walking none. Yankees hitters have just 15 hits off him. In 11 career games (eight starts) against the Yankees, Eovaldi is 3-2 with a 2.98 ERA.

Quiet bats in the late going

If you are looking for lots of late-inning runs to be scored in this one, perhaps that’s not wise. Consider that Boston is just 22nd in baseball in runs scored from the seventh inning onward (116), while the Yankees are 25th, with 110. Perhaps that’s because …

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Lightning from the pen

… Both the Red Sox and Yankees are among the best coming from the bullpen. Boston’s ERA from the seventh inning on is 3.26 – fifth in the big leagues. That’s one spot ahead of the Yankees, who sport a respectable 3.46, even with a few late-inning meltdowns in recent weeks.

Tick … tick … tick…

With the trade deadline two weeks away and the Yankees continuing to fade in the AL East, beginning Saturday with a nine-game deficit to Boston and 5.5 back of the second wild-card spot, currently held by the Oakland Athletics, decisions will have to be made about a bloated and underachieving payroll. New York has done trade deadline sells in the past — remember, Aroldis Chapman went to the Chicago Cubs in 2016 in a huge deadline move before returning to the Bronx as a free agent.

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