After putting the kids to bed, I turned on the old telly to check out the score of the Yankee-Red Sox game, and it was already 13-3 Yankees in the fourth inning. The Red Sox were already on their third pitcher, David Riske (pronounced risky), which seemed apropos. Josh Beckett lasted just 1-1/3 and gave up eight runs, though only 7 earned. Next, Jermaine Van Buren—he's the penultimate brother in the Van Buren Five after Martin—also last 1-1/3 and relinquished 5.

I was left wondering, is this really much of a rivalry? The score ended up 13-5, but that's nowhere near the most lopsided Yankee-Red Sox game this season. That honor goes to the 14-3 pasting the Sox laid on the Yanks on May 9.

In fact, on average in eight games this year, the two teams have been no closer than four and one half runs apart. The average margin of victory so far has been 4.625 runs.

So why is this rivalry so ridiculously hyped? Well, it does seem to sell.

Given the results so far this year, I wondered what was the greatest margin of victory for the series in any given year. Here's what I found:

It seems that a lot of recent seasons are in that mix. What if we looked at the average run differential for all Yankee-Red Sox games per decade? Are the 2000s the worst?

Let's see…

Wow, that's quite a job. Even the high-scoring Nineties did not see any sort of increase like we are seeing now in average margin of victory. But maybe it's happening in all games, nit just Yankee-Red Sox games.

Below is the average margin of victory for all games between all teams per decade:

Yes, there has been a jump in margin of victory recently, but it's nowhere near what we are seeing in Boston-New York contests.

I submit that the Yankee-Red Sox rivalry has lost a bit of its old luster of late. Maybe they're just waiting for the playoffs. I'm a Phillies fan. I don't have that luxury.