The Hottest Rivalry In Baseball Has Returned For The First Time Since Last Season

  The New York Yankees are coming off a four-game spilt against the Tampa Bay Rays and will turn their attention to their most hated rivals in baseball, as the A.L. East division will once again be shaken up by the intensity between the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. Since the 2021 baseball  season has gotten underway, the Rays and Yankee have certainly seen a lot of each other lately, and while it may seem that the  Yankees-Rays may have replaced Yankees-Red Sox rivalry as the most intense in the American League East, there is no denying the bad blood that has accumulated over the years between New York and Boston.

  Veteran outfielder Brett Gardner said it best when he made it a point to say that, "...there’s no love lost between New York and Boston...."

   Before the Yankees fell to the Rays, 9-2, at Yankee Stadium on Thursday, Gardner said, "Listen...They don’t like us. We don’t like them.” That is a pretty strong remark by the longest tenured Yankee, who may be finding his swing after a slow start to the season, as he was the batter that put the Yankees on the scoreboard in the bottom of third inning of last night's game. After Kyle Higashioka grounded out to 3rd-baseman Joey Wendle to start the bottom of the third inning, Brett Gardner worked himself into an 0-1 hole by attempting to bunt himself onto first-base, but then the veteran lefty took the very next pitch deep into the crowd to put his team ahead of the Rays by a score of 0 TB-1 NYY. While the Yanks did fall at the hand of the Rays last night, they did see improvement from not only Gardner, but also Miguel Andujar as well. 

  Andujar, who is getting a lot more playing time with Giancarlo Stanton on the I.L is see a lot more playing time in left field, and he joined in on the homerun party by producing his 3rd dinger of the season in the bottom of the 7th last night. With those two bats getting hot, along with the consistent production of guys like Aaron Judge and Gio Urshela, could the series against Boston serve as a much needed turning point to the up-and-down season that the Yankees are having thus far?