Is anyone else starting to feel like they're remembering the Yankees?
You know, the one where they beat an AL Central team in the playoffs and then they lose to the Astros, and then you hear about how it was all down to luck.
However, the Yankees are 5-0 in postseason series against AL Central teams and 0-4 against Houston since 2015. At some point, it's not a case of luck, but a sense of Yankees déjà vu right up to the postseason postmortem.
Hint: they were a championship team but didn't win it, next year will be their year, and…
What could be more nightmarish for the Yankees than losing to the Astros again after sweeping Houston by winning six of seven games through the second week of May and sending the Astros to the end of their season? Except the Astros aren't dead. They're Michael Myers looming. Halloween is in October.
But this is way ahead of schedule, and September 1 is a crucial day for the Yankees.
I know there's been a lot of recent theory that getting a bye in the first round could allow a team to fade and languish while other teams play, with two wild card teams (Texas and Arizona) making it to the World Series last year and Philadelphia entering as a sixth seed in 2022. But in the eight seasons from 2015 to 2022, the AL has had a No. 1 seed represented six times and a No. 2 seed represented twice.
And if you gave all 30 GMs the opportunity to play a best-of-three or best-of-five division series as the playoff opener with an automatic bye, you'd get 30 out of 30 who could avoid the possibility of their team being eliminated from the postseason by a two-day slump.
That means the Yankees need to win the division, because the AL East champion is almost guaranteed to get one of the AL's two bye weeks, which would ease their path to their first World Series appearance since 2009.
But they also have to win a division. There's no excuse not to do that. They have to make the most of Ruth and Gehrig (Aaron Judge and Juan Soto) when they have them, especially with the uncertainty of whether Soto will be back next year.
The Yankees need to win because they'll get Luis Gil, Anthony Rizzo and Clark Schmidt back this week, and maybe Ian Hamilton and Lou Trivino if they want, and they'll be as healthy as they've been this year.
Meanwhile, the Orioles are playing without five starting pitchers (Kyle Bradish, Zach Eflin, John Means, Grayson Rodriguez and Tyler Wells, plus another deadline acquisition, Trevor Rogers, who they sent to the minor leagues). Baltimore also has two starting corner infielders (Ryan Mountcastle and Jordan Westberg), key utility player Jorge Mateo is currently on the disabled list and has been without star closer Felix Bautista all year, putting his replacement, Craig Kimbrel, in a low-leverage position.
By August 14, the Yankees were 72-50 and half a game ahead of the Orioles, who were 71-50. Baltimore then began a 14-game stretch in which they faced the Red Sox, Mets, Astros and Dodgers, while the Yankees faced the Tigers, the struggling Guardians, Rockies and Nationals.
The Orioles were 6-7 entering their final game at Dodger Stadium on Thursday night, while the Yankees were 6-6 and had only managed a half-game advantage over the rest of the season — during a potentially thriving season.
Now the Orioles' schedule flips around, with a six-game series against the Rockies and White Sox, the second-worst teams in the National League and arguably the worst teams of all time.
So the Yankees missed a bit of a window heading into Labor Day weekend. The calendar flipped over the holiday and there's less than a month left until the end of the regular season. So now it's a sprint to beat the Orioles in the final few weeks, with the final game against Baltimore coming up in the Bronx.
In fact, at this point, with a healthy Gerrit Cole, a potentially full rotation (even stronger with the returns of Gill and Schmidt), and the Yankees having the deepest lineup of the year led by Soto and Judge, finishing second is unacceptable.
And the man who's feeling the most pressure is Aaron Boone. Traditionally, he'd look to a big-name free agent. But right now, Soto doesn't have to hit for the rest of this season and his free-agent minimum contract will likely be worth $500 million. He's already proven himself one of the best hitters under the age of 25, and he's done it in New York, winning a championship already.
At this point, Hal Steinbrenner has indicated no intention of overhauling his front office and firing Brian Cashman, who is under contract through 2026, but Boone has an unexercised 2025 option. He finished first just twice in his first six years, but both times he beat an AL Central team in the playoffs before losing to the Astros.
Now in his seventh year, Boone has consistently insisted he is a special team and a championship favorite. But it's a familiar story. At some point, it's just an endless loop of noise, with no action to back up the platitudes. So, in this season where the Yankees are at full strength, the first thing they should do is:
Please finish first.
