Here's the difference between the Yankees and Red Sox, this season. The Red Sox is a ton less likely to drop a game to a sub-.500 division rival. The Yankees? That's kinda their thing.
The problem with being home-runs-or-bust is that you run the risk of letting wins go by and giving them to teams like the Rays and Orioles. The team strikes out too much, their pitching has too many guys who COULD give up like 7 runs, and post-injury Aroldis Chapman might be scaring people. The Red Sox, catching notwithstanding, don't have many flaws, don't strikeout too much (other than JBJ), and have a wholly fantastic pitching staff. So OBVIOUSLY they're well into first.
The Yankees do have a ton of problems that I don't think the trade deadline could solve, but damn if they're trying. Gary Sanchez is on the DL (or benched, depending on what you'd like to believe), so Austin Romine FINALLY gets to be the everyday, and Kyle Higashioka is a pretty sturdy backup (never thought I'd say that). Domingo German is, at the moment, fulfilling a demotion, which either means someone's getting called up or someone's moving in. Also, and this is slightly-off-topic, but the bullpen is REALLY DAMN GOOD. Not too many bad eggs there at all. This is a team that can hold a lead, and recover if Aroldis' initial post-break woes end up being a regular thing (and literally THE NIGHT I POST THIS, we get our hands on Zach Britton).
The toughest obstacle will be getting over the Red Sox permanently. It may be tough, and the Yankees may have to settle for rolling the dice with the wild card game again. It's not the ideal route, but the Yankees need to make sure it's not the only option.
Coming Tomorrow- In the absence of their all-star first baseman, the Nationals have employed two big, strong guys who hit home runs for average. Here's the backup.
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