3 thoughts after 3 more exhilarating Red Sox victories over the Yankees

COMMENTARY

A generation came and went without getting to enjoy something like this.

Six straight victories over the Yankees to begin the season, and seven straight overall if we include the Red Sox winning the final meeting of 2020 after dropping an unheard of 17 of 18 to their rivals.

Sunday’s 9-2 win, in which Boston led after one pitch and shelled big-money ace Gerrit Cole for a second straight meeting, was historic … in the way everything technically creates some amount of historical record. (Of note, Cole’s only allowed three or more runs in three of his 16 starts this season, and the Red Sox are 2 for 2.) 

This is the first time since 2011 the Red Sox swept back-to-back series against New York, and just the third time ever (1912, 2009) they’ve won as many as six straight to open a season series.

In going on 120 years of playing each other, it’s only the 11th distinct time the Red Sox have won six straight regular-season games against the Yankees — and amid one of those, Boston lost the 1999 ALCS to New York. Two predated the Babe Ruth sale, four are since 2005, and it didn’t happen once from 1949-73.

Twenty-four years is debatably too short to be called a generation, but go with me here.

This is, of course, not necessarily a harbinger of anything. That aforementioned 2009 squad opened 8-0 against the Yankees, then promptly lost 9 of 10 and the division to them handily. But banked wins and leads are just that. Boston sits 6.5 games clear of the preseason pennant favorites, with a nearly 80-percent chance to make the playoffs.

Let’s mull a few things from the weekend while we all slowly melt.

The Red Sox are playing a different brand of baseball.

The Globe’s Julian McWilliams put it well after Saturday night’s 4-2 win: The Red Sox haven’t just been beating the Yankees this season. They’ve been doing it with a style of baseball New York seems incapable of playing.

A generation ago, it was the Red Sox who were perennially built around glacial sluggers. A team as dynamic as an equipment truck. They felt that way as recently as last year, though the 2020 squad’s biggest problem was a lack of athletes and spark, period.

They still aren’t stealing bases at anywhere near even league average, but they’re above average taking the extra base. Red Sox runners have been thrown out at home a dozen times, second only to the Yankees in the AL, but that’s a forgivable aggression, relatively speaking. Plays like Rafael Devers tagging up on a foul pop to first baseman Luke Voit on Saturday? The double tag-up in the first inning Sunday as Cole labored, putting two in scoring position for Devers before his three-run home run?

That’s smart baseball. That’s pressure baseball. That’s motivated, dynamic baseball, as is their place among the top half of the league swinging at first pitches.

It’s a direct line to Alex Cora, a student of the game like few others, who has preached this as a way to win since his days in Houston.

“We do believe that we can take advantage in certain situations,” Cora told reporters on Saturday. “We were very aggressive against the Rays. We’ve been very aggressive against the Yankees. Playing fast works. It doesn’t matter. It’s not about stealing bases.”

And it’s working.

Garrett Whitlock remains a revelation.

There hasn’t really been a laugher among the six games, with Sunday’s scoreline obscuring the pivotal moment in the seventh inning.

After Aaron Judge chipped the early bulge to 6-2 with a monstrous home run in the sixth, Cora turned to Darwinzon Hernandez for the seventh. Hernandez blew through Gleyber Torres, but walked Miguel Andujar and didn’t quite elevate his two-strike fastball to Clint Frazier enough, a soft fly to center falling for a single.

Two on, one out, top of the Yankees order looming and the taxed Red Sox bullpen suddenly staring down a game in doubt that New York was desperate to win.

Enter Whitlock, who lost a nine-pitch battle to Gary Sanchez to load the bases, only to paint the fringes of the zone three times against the red-hot DJ LeMahieu. His breaking ball to Judge caught more of the plate than he wanted, but it was still away, and Judge meekly popped it out.

Then, after Devers made it 7-2, Whitlock got Giancarlo Stanton flailing at a slider away, then Gio Urshela to ground into a double play on a good miss. (Trying to go away again, Whitlock missed inside, but got the swing anyhow.)

It hasn’t been perfect, but in 5 ⅓ innings across three appearances against his former team, Whitlock has six strikeouts and hasn’t allowed a run. In the first two, he was brought into one-run games, and Sunday’s was just as much in doubt in the moment Whitlock got the call.

It can’t be said enough: This is a 25-year-old who, before this season, hadn’t pitched above Double A. Your mileage may vary with the WAR stat, but by Baseball Reference’s calculation, no Red Sox reliever has contributed more than Whitlock (1.3). Not even Matt Barnes (1.1).

And the Sox took him from the Yankees system for nothing.

Time to take a breath

Since an off-day on May 17, the Red Sox are 22-14 despite playing 30 of 36 games against 2020 playoff teams. That’s the third-best record in the American League in that stretch, just 1.5 games worse than both Houston and Tampa Bay.

Between now and the All-Star break is a bit of breather, at least relatively. Sub-.500 Kansas City comes to Fenway for four games beginning Monday night, followed by a West Coast trip through Oakland and Anaheim, then the return interleague series at Fenway against Philadelphia.

The schedule out of the July 12-14 break is a bizarre one: Fifteen straight games against the Yankees and Blue Jays, the first seven on the road and the lot of them essentially all that stands between the Red Sox and the July 30 trade deadline.

It still feels far away, but it’s only a month now. And the Red Sox have played their way into a deeply intriguing position about how they should approach it.

Jon Couture

Jon Couture is a contributor at Boston.com, focused primarily on the Red Sox.

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