Boston Red Sox in a tight race for the AL East division title
By Sean Penney
New York Yankees
Current Record: 68-63 (fourth in AL East, 6.5 games back)
Remaining Divisional Games: Orioles (6 games), Blue Jays (7 games), Red Sox (7 games)
Why they will finish first
Because there is an unwritten rule that we aren’t allowed to count out the Yankees? Seriously though, what makes the Yankees dangerous is that they are playing like a team with nothing to lose. Everyone was ready to give up on them when they started selling off key pieces, yet they’ve managed to improve their position in the playoff hunt since the deadline. An infusion of young talent on the roster has given this team a boost to get back in the race.
Masahiro Tanaka has returned to ace status after a couple of injury-shortened seasons to begin his career. He has already blown by his career-high since coming to the US with 173 innings and owns a 3.12 ERA that ranks seventh in the league.
The Yankees are a long shot to vault to the top of the division, but they are only 3.5 games out of a Wild Card spot. Tanaka gives them a solid chance in a one-game playoff, so there is still hope for this improving Yankees team.
Why they won’t
They are too far back and have too many teams to climb over in the AL East. They have been playing good baseball lately, but at some point they will feel the effects of giving up so many quality veterans. The bullpen is severely weakened by trades that shipped out Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller, while the middle of the lineup will miss the power of Carlos Beltran‘s bat. He still leads the team in homers and RBI, despite being traded a month ago.
The Yankees have a -11 run differential that suggests they should be below .500, not five games above it. Sure, this is a different Yankees team than what we’ve seen for the bulk of the season, but not one that is necessarily significantly better. When is the last time a team made the playoffs with a negative run differential? I looked back as far as 2003 and couldn’t find a team that came close in recent memory. The 2012 Orioles had the lowest run differential of any playoff team in that span at +7. I wouldn’t count on this Yankees team being the one that bucks the trend.
Next: Take my bullpen, please!
X-Factor
It’s hard to do more to impress than Gary Sanchez has done to begin his career. The 23-year old catcher is hitting .383/.448/.819 and recently became the first player in major league history to blast 11 home runs in the first 23 career games. A Yankees team that was near the bottom of the league in scoring all season suddenly shot up to first in runs scored for the month of August. It’s no surprise then that Sanchez became a fixture in the lineup on August 3. Can his bat help carry the Yankees to the postseason or is it too little, too late?