Sports

Yankees-Red Sox in familiar place — battling for 1st place in AL East

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What happens when you combine baseball’s greatest rivalry and Opening Day? Not a heck of a lot, according to former Red Sox infielder/outfielder Kevin Millar.

“I was at the Yankee game when they were playing the Red Sox and half the stadium was full, “ said Millar, who hosts “Intentional Talk” on the MLB Network.

“I was a part of that series and it was like a Super Bowl every time we played, so it didn’t feel right. I get it because at the start of the season the Yankees almost looked more like the Blue Jays for a while with [Vernon] Wells and [Lyle] Overbay. The team didn’t really have much of an identity.”

Both teams started the season with low expectations: the Yankees because of injuries to star players and the Red Sox because they were coming off a disastrous 69-93 season under Bobby Valentine, who was replaced by John Farrell.

But with one third of the season gone the teams find themselves in familiar position: battling for the AL East lead. And Millar is hoping both teams’ success brings back the atmosphere the heated rivalry had a decade ago in this weekend’s three-game series.

“Now you are going to see the top two teams and here we go again. It’s much better for baseball when they are as good as they are,” Millar said.

The Yankees will bring some star power with them after wrapping up the Subway Series with the Mets last night. Mark Teixeira (wrist) is expected to make his season debut against the Red Sox, and Kevin Youkilis (back) also is scheduled to return from the disabled list to face his former team tonight.

Youkilis, batting .266 before the injury, was in the middle of the Valentine controversy in Boston, when the former manager called him out for not being “physically or emotionally” into the game. That was one of the first signs of trouble for the 2012 Red Sox, but manager Farrell’s return to Boston has helped put those problems in the past.

“He’s got a big presence, a big guy, but he’s really soft spoken, just a nice man,” Millar said of Farrell, who was the pitching coach for the Red Sox from 2007-10 before taking the Blue Jays managerial job.

“It’s very similar to what Robin Ventura brought to the White Sox last year [when he replaced Ozzie Guillen]. Everything is just a little more calm and then you add the team and the guys that they did. Then they went out and got baseball players: [Shane] Victorino, [Mike] Napoli, [Ryan] Dempster. That whole scene kind of put the Red Sox back to where we were in ’03. We weren’t big-name guys, but we were ballplayers. It’s a very similar thing, in my opinion.”

jterranova@nypost.com