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          New York Yankees

          Yankees faster than Red Sox

          • Andrew Marchand, ESPN Senior WriterApr 18, 2014, 02:29 PM ET
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              Andrew Marchand is a senior writer for ESPNNewYork. He also regularly contributes to SportsCenter, Baseball Tonight, ESPNews, ESPN New York 98.7 FM and ESPN Radio. He joined ESPN in 2007 after nine years at the New York Post. Follow Andrew on Twitter »
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          The New York Yankees used to be the champions of the long games. But no longer, the title now belongs to the Boston Red Sox.

          The Yankees are actually speeding up their games, making them, to borrow a phrase from a famous Yankee broadcaster, more manageable. The fine folks at FiveThirtyEight explain in more detail.

          The New York Yankees haven’t dominated the majors since 2002, winning just one world championship over that period. But they’ve dominated MLB rankings for length of game. From 2002 to 2012, the Yankees’ average length of game was in the top four of the 30 major league teams each season, including five league-leading performances. Yet lately they’ve gotten faster: The average Yankees game has been shorter each year than the year before since 2009, culminating in last year’s 15th-place showing of three hours and five minutes — just half a minute longer than the league-average figure.

          The slowest team in baseball is now — wait for it — the Boston Red Sox. New York’s archrivals have ranked in the top three in average game length each year since 2003. Last year, Boston’s fourth straight season as the slowest team in baseball, its average game took three hours and 15 minutes.

          As much as we all like baseball, I don't think many will complain about the Yankees being a middle of the pack team in term of length of games.