Red Sox vs. Yankees: Who has better offense? Alex Rodriguez doesn’t play favorites

The New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox, 11-1, on Sunday, July 1, 2018 (7/1/18) at Yankee Stadium to pull into a tie for first place in the American League East. Before working the game for ESPN, former Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez said who has the better offense: the Yankees, led by Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, or the Red Sox, led by Mookie Betts and J.D. Martinez.

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The Yankees slugged six home runs on the way to their 11-1 win over the Boston Red Sox on Sunday night at Yankee Stadium to pull into a tie for first place in the American League East.

The Yankees also won the series opener, 8-1, thanks in part to four home runs.

For the season, the Yankees lead MLB with 137 home runs.

But don’t sleep on the Red Sox. They’re second in the majors with 120 home runs and lead the majors with 439 runs scored.

Before Sunday night’s game, Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe asked ex-Yankee and current ESPN analyst Alex Rodriguez to compare the Red Sox and Yankees.  A-Rod’s answer on who has the better offense may surprise you:

While [Giancarlo] Stanton and Aaron Judge get a lot of attention, the Red Sox have the best 1-2 punch in baseball in Mookie Betts and J.D. Martinez. If you asked the insiders in the game, they would put Mookie in the top three players in the game and that’s a hell of a compliment for a guy who goes under the radar. And the reason he goes under the radar is because he’s a consummate professional. He does everything really well and he gets better every year and he does it with class, elegance, and stealth. J.D. is becoming the top slugger in our game, a combination of power and run production and contact. He’s also a very good hitter. What the most impressive thing about him is, just about everybody who comes into a big market like New York and Boston, there’s an adjustment period. The whole first half of ’04 for me was a difficult one. It was a challenging time. J.D. hit the ground running. The one to credit here is Dave Dombrowski.”

Yankees prospects A to Z

When told of Rodriguez’s comments, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman took the high road, per the New York Daily News:

“He’s being paid a lot more by them to give strong opinions than he’s being paid by us,” Cashman joked before A-Rod was in the TV booth for Sunday night’s series finale between the Yankees and Red Sox. “I think Alex is wearing a lot of hats. He’s now A-Rod Corp.”

…

“Listen, he’s now transitioned from obviously being an excellent major-league baseball player to obviously being a dominant force in the business world,” Cashman said. “So with that, comes a lot of areas and all that time. He’s got time for us, but not as much time as maybe he’s got for others…I’m just happy that he’s available as a contributing member (of the organization), but he’s a man of many talents.”

Mike Rosenstein may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @rosenstein73. Find NJ.com on Facebook.