A year after absolutely shitting the bed midyear and infuriating the fanbase, the New York Yankees are a playoff team once again, and look to clinch the AL East for the third time in the Aaron Boone era. After tussling with Baltimore all year, and coming into a particularly hairy midyear slide once again, the Yanks are chasing 90 wins, 5 games ahead of the competition, and look to be a high seed in what will surely be a contentious playoff picture.
Now. There are some things we know about the Yankees, just from looking at patterns. We know that as a first or second seed, there's a probability that they'll lose momentum in the bye week and get toppled by a lesser competitor. This is something that can happen with a 12-team playoff picture. The season is about your 1 and 2 guys, but sometimes the season comes down to six seeds, and that's an equally exciting story to some people. But, of course, when you follow a team that's dominated the whole year and then watch them get creamed by a team with less wins that just got lucky, that's more heartbreaking.
We also know that the Boone-era Yankees have yet to make a World Series, much like any Yankee team since the 2010s began. Randy Arozarena, Corbin Carroll, Jeremy Pena and Evan Carter all played in World Series' the first chances they got, and Aaron Judge has still yet to get there. Again, a lot of that owes to hubris, and to the argument that this team isn't as well built for October, as they always find a way to run out of steam early. Some people point to Boone, as they did to Girardi, as a bad postseason manager. I think that's an oversimplification.
You also have to remember that there's a nonzero percentage that the Yankees come face to face with Houston yet again. This...tends to happen. Every time it's happened since 2015, the outcome's been the same. What's funny, though, is that the recent regular season series' against the Astros have all gone New York's way. Hell, our season BEGAN with a 4-0 sweep of the Astros. Now, I'm a writer and storyteller, and I do understand how poetic it would be if after the season started that way, the Astros got their revenge and swept us to END our season. That doesn't mean I want it to happen. That'd just be cruel. And besides, we just match up better against the Astros. And you can really see the cracks starting to show, with Verlander showing his age, Altuve getting mad at little shit, Tucker's injury being downplayed, and people starting to leave. So if there's any year where the Yankees could finally beat Houston in the postseason, it could be this one.
As it stands now, the team looks good. Clarke Schmidt is back from the IL, and despite being the losing pitcher in yesterday's Seattle match, he looked sharp, and he's still having a phenomenal year. Soto and Judge are still hot, and Rizzo's getting hot himself. Cortes and Rodon are polishing off excellent full season campaigns. Chisholm fits right in with this team. Clay Holmes is still an issue but Weaver, Hill, Kahnle and Cousins give me hope. I feel really good about this team, and it'd be nice if we made the leap.
I bring up all of the earlier points because I am prepared for the worst, and it could happen. If you're going by the patterns, you'd be led to believe that it's not destined to be. But I see a definite road to the end. There are matches against teams we can beat in our future. This definitely could happen, and I'd love to see that it does.
Coming Tonight (?): When he's cold, you laugh. But then he gets hot. And you pray there hasn't been a mass calamity recently.
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