Projo Sox Blog

I received the following response to the post about John Farrell's comments on Joba Chamberlain: "Each and every year the Sox hit much more Yankees than the Yankees hit Sox. Look it up, it isn't even close! Sox can't seem to take what they usually give out. FACT!!"

Looking it up is easy enough to do. So I looked at the box score of every Yankees-Red Sox game since Terry Francona took over as manager in 2004 -- including the 2004 American League Championship Series.

Here are the numbers:

-In all, Red Sox pitchers hit 67 Yankee batters, while Yankee pitchers hit 54 Red Sox batters.

-Overall, the number of hit batsman has cooled off considerably since 2004, when the Red Sox hit 18 Yankees and the Yankees hit 15 Red Sox. In 2006 and 2007, neither team hit more than 10 of the other team's batters. In the 2004 ALCS, the Red Sox continued hitting Yankee hitters at a torrid clip -- seven hit batsman for seven games. The Yanks, though, suddenly became a lot less inclined to go inside -- hitting just one Sox batter the entire series.

-The Yankee pitchers may be behind in the hit-by-pitch department, but they are catching up quickly. This year, New York pitchers have hit Red Sox batters eight times, compared to two Yankee batters hit by Boston pitchers.

Breakdown by season:

-2004: Red Sox hit 18 Yankees; Yankees hit 15 Red Sox

-2004 ALCS: Red Sox hit 7 Yankees; Yankees hit 1 Red Sox

-2005: Red Sox hit 10 Yankees; Yankees hit 6 Red Sox

-2006: Red Sox hit 7 Yankees; Yankees hit 6 Red Sox

-2007: 9 hit batsman for each team.

-2008: Red Sox hit 14 Yankees; Yankees hit 9 Red Sox

-2009: Red Sox hit 2 Yankees; Yankees hit 8 Red Sox

One thing we can't measure, of course, is intent -- my guess is that the instances of Pedro Martinez hitting New York batters have more meaning than the many HBPs racked up by Tim Wakefield over these past five-plus years. But there it is.

 Tags  Joba Chamberlain John Farrell New York Yankees

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