The Red Sox got the better of the Yankees in the third game of this weekend’s series, saddling CC Sabathia in the loss on Sunday. But the aging Yankees starter still produced a quality start, only giving up three runs in his six innings of work.
In the course of his outing, Sabathia struck out eight Red Sox batters, all swinging. On the surface, this might seem like a throwaway number, especially with Boston coming away with the win. But, according to Sarah Langs of MLB.com, this is the fourth time the Red Sox have K’d swinging eight times in a game in 2019. Why’s that significant? Well, the Red Sox only did that six times in all of 2018.
Over the first 59 games of the season, the Red Sox have struck out 487 times in 2050 team at-bats. Through the same number of games in 2018, pitchers punched out Boston hitters 457 in 2064 at-bats.
In terms of percentage, it’s only a slight increase from 22.1 in 2018 to 23.8 this year. This is certainly a sign of the times, but also a trend the Red Sox may want to keep an eye on moving forward.
CC Sabathia is the 4th pitcher to get 8+ swinging strikeouts vs the Red Sox this season.Last year, only 6 pitchers did that in an outing against them *all year*.It's June 2.
— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports)
June 3, 2019
