Yankees and the AL East: 25 years as baseball’s best division

2013

Boston last won the title in 2013, beating the Cardinals and future Yankees player Matt Holliday in six games. Boston looked like a good team before the season with a real chance to win it all, although not thought of as the favorite.

But the town faced a terrorist attack during its venerable Boston Marathon, and it seemed to resonate with the team. It helped drive them all the way back to the Fall Classic. This World Series team, however, was the opposite of the previous one.

The 2007 team presented a balanced attack; only two position players out of twelve failed to hit above .250. The 2013 version was led by one man, David Ortiz, the only Boston batter to hit above .250 in this series.

Very Big Papi

And Ortiz also led with his fearsome plate presence and prodigious power. He not only slashed .688/.760/1.188, but also collected eleven hits, six RBI’s, and two home runs, all team highs.

In fact, no other Sock had more than six hits (Jacoby Ellsbury). The Sox hit only four home runs, and no one but Big Papi hit more than one.

Jon Lester, meanwhile, was the Sox best pitcher in the series. He threw the most innings (15.1) and had the best ERA of any starter with more than four innings (0.59). When the series was over, the Sox had won more titles in ten years than most clubs have won in their entire existence.

So you know they play in the AL Beast.

But we’ll finish out of order with the last Yankees World Series team, that of 2009.