Swept Up

It seems the only time Shank bothers to write about a Red Sox / Yankees series is when he's complaining about it. A few days ago he bitched about the slow pace of the games, and naturally his next column came after a loss by the Red Sox.

Was a sweep too much to ask?

Red Sox fans are a greedy lot. That’s what happens when you win four championships over 15 seasons.

And Shank's done his level best to minimize and downplay every one of them.

And so sweep talk dominated the Boston baseball landscape in the hours leading up to Sunday night’s ESPN hardball festival.

The 2019 Sox — sluggish for so much of this season — pantsed the first-place Yankees over the first three games of this series. Boston won all three games, outscoring New York by a whopping 38-13. The Sox struck a ridiculous 33 extra-base hits over three days, winning games by hideous scores of 19-3, 10-5, and 9-5. Brutal beatings, every one.

And when the Red Sox failed to sweep the Yankees, Shank's all over it like a fly on shit. For those of you who dare to read the rest of the column, note the exquisite detail in which Shank goes to document the manner in which the Sox lost the game. You can just picture the perma-smirk he had while banging this column out.