The Yankees were 6-9 and the weather was lousy the last time they saw the Red Sox.
The Rivalry will be renewed on Thursday night for the opener of a four-game series at Yankee Stadium. The weather won't be great, not until Friday anyway, but the Yankees are certainly not a sub-.500 team anymore.
Since starting 6-9, the Yankees have gone 30-10 after Wednesday afternoon's 7-0 victory over the Padres at chilly, overcast Yankee Stadium.
The Red Sox? The defending World Series champions (and vanquishers of the Yankees in last year's playoffs) aren't even the Yankees' closest pursuers in the AL East. Going into their game against Cleveland on Wednesday night, the third-place Red Sox trailed the Yankees by seven games.
The second-place squad would be the Rays, who trailed the Yankees by 1 { games going into Tampa Bay's home game on Wednesday night against Toronto. Those two teams drew 5,786 fans to Tropicana Field on Tuesday night while, over in Miami, 6,407 watched the Marlins play the Giants. Baseball in Florida is a disaster.
The Yankees and Red Sox will have no such worries starting Thursday. Figure on 180,000 or so fans jamming into the place by the time Sunday night's ESPN game ends.
"It's huge," said Luke Voit, who combined with DJ LeMahieu for back-to-back homers to start the bottom of the first and also had his first regular-season triple in the seventh as the Yankees overwhelmed the Padres. "Obviously, it's a big series for us to help out our lead for first place and we're going to do whatever we can."
J.A. Happ, who was a poor tone-setter when he was throttled by the Red Sox in Game 1 of last year's ALDS, will start on Thursday against Chris Sale. Right into the fire.
"It's the best rivalry in baseball, so we're excited," Voit said. "We haven't seen these guys in a while, and it's going to be a lot of fun this weekend."
The Yankees' two-game home sweep of the Red Sox on April 16-17 was the turning point of their season. James Paxton struck out 12 in eight innings in an 8-0 victory in the first game to show the kind of dominance the Yankees also saw in a shorter stint by the left-hander on Wednesday.
Paxton, in his first start back off the injured list, didn't allow a hit in four innings and struck out seven. He was pulled after 66 pitches. The team's combined no-hit bid ended when Wil Myers singled off the glove of a diving LeMahieu in short right field against Adam Ottavino leading off the sixth.
On April 17, Brett Gardner hit a seventh-inning grand slam for his 100th career homer and the Yankees went on to a 5-3 victory.
The stadium should be rocking again this weekend. If you can't make it to Sunday night's game, ESPN announced on Wednesday that Yankees part-time special adviser Alex Rodriguez and his broadcast cohorts _ including Mets part-time special adviser Jessica Mendoza _ will be calling the game from the Judge's Chambers seats in right field.
Or, as the website "Awful Announcing" put it: "Desperate to make Yanks-Sox more unbearable, ESPN will plant announcers in Yankee Stadium's Judge's Chambers."
You see, not everyone in America is as enthralled with Yankees-Red Sox as we are in New York and they are in New England. (The teams are even going to take their act to Old England for two games in London at the end of June.)
Yankees-Red Sox has been done, and done, and done. Last year's ALDS was hyped to the gills, but wasn't the most exciting series as the Red Sox won in four games.
Not that that matters much to Aaron Boone, who of course has a special place in Yankees-Red Sox lore.
"It's like, 'We've got J.A. pitching and Sale's pitching,' " Boone said. "It's like, 'What can we to do go win a ballgame?' That's about as far as I let myself go."
