The Yankees Started the second half behind three teams in the wild card chase; Oakland, Minnesota and Tampa. Tampa has since swapped spots with Boston. The Yankees face in order Oakland, Minnesota and Boston after the break. This is the opportunity an underachieving team like the Yankees needed and so far they are taking advantage. They have leapfrogged Oakland in the standings and are now one game back of the Twins. With a sweep of the Twins they will have only Boston standing in their way of the Wild Card lead. So things are looking good.
Now this team is clearly flawed. There are two spots in the rotation that are questionable at best and the lineup has 3 outs at the bottom in Melky, Molina and Gardner. Also, Matsui and Posada are most likely done for the year, Giambi is coming back down to earth(.216 in July) and Jeter is having maybe his worst year as a Yankee. With all this somehow the team is close to the top of the wild card race. The question is, is this good fortune or is the Yankee team good enough to compete. Their run differential is a little worrisome (+32) when compared with the other contenders oakland (+57), Minnesota(+33) and Boston(+87). With Cano heating up, Andy pitching well and Hughes and Wang due back in September they should stay in it regardless of any big moves by Cashman(which I personally would not expect).
The question of whether they have enough to make it back to the postseason will probably not be determined into the final days of September...perhaps even the final weekend in Boston.
1 comment:
They just leapfrogged Minny Twinkies tonight in run differential and closed some of the gap with Oakland. That is one positive move.
Melky, Cano and Jose came up pretty decent tonight in hitting, so maybe, just maybe they are turning a corner.
Gardner is still flailing at pitches, but he isn't a big factor in the offense anyway.
The Yankees could use getting a bat to help out though.
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