Upcoming Toronto Series Starts Gut Check Time For The Yanks

The Yankees are fresh off their second 9-game road trip of the season and this past one was the tougher of the 2.  3 games against a red hot Royals club, 3 against an unexpectedly competitive Seattle team, and 3 against the best team in the American League in the A's.  They came through it with a positive 5-4 record, although those results did little to help them gain ground in the AL East race.

That race comes back into full focus for the next month, starting tonight when the Yankees host division-leading Toronto for a 3-game set.  It will be the first of 5 straight series against AL East opponents, including another 3-gamer in Toronto this time next week, and 12 of those 15 games will be played at home.  Tonight marks the first time the Yankees have faced a divisional opponent since the first week of May and the first time they've faced the Blue Jays since the second series of the season when they took 2 of 3 in Toronto.

Plenty Of Intrigue, As Always, To The First Yanks-Sawx Series Of The Season

(Courtesy of whoever did this originally.  Thing is baller)

The best rivalry in baseball heats up again tonight when the Yankees and Red Sox hook up for the first of what will be a 4-game weekend series.  Both teams are 4-5 to start their respective seasons and both teams have some disappointing and unexpected results that put them there.  The Yankees lost 2 of 3 to the Astros and lost the last 2 games at home to the Orioles heading into this series.  The Sawx got swept by the Brewers in their home-opening series.  Needless to say, neither of these teams is off to the start they were hoping for.

What adds to the importance (as important as an early April intra-league series can be) of this series is the vastly different offseasons each of these clubs had.  The Yankees are coming off a high-spending offseason in response to their failure to make the postseason in 2013, part of which included signing former Red Sock Jacoby Ellsbury to a very lucrative 7-year deal.  The Sawx had a relatively quiet offseason, losing more guys than they replaced externally and instead trying to re-up this year through prospects and returning internal young players.  They're still trying to find their footing, but they're also still the 2 big swinging dicks in the AL East, no matter what Tampa Bay has to say about it.  tarting tonight we get our first idea of how much each of them is still swinging...

P.S.- I'm really hoping somebody on the Yankee pitching staff remembers the A-Rod beaning from last year.  Last time I checked, they still owe Boston one for that nonsense.

Looking At The Remaining Schedule

A sweep of any division rival is sweet, but the Yankees got slapped back into reality last night in the first game of their weekend series against the Rays.  Beating up on the AL East doormat Blue Jays was a huge help in bringing the Yankees back into the playoff picture.  If they really want to stay in that picture, however, they have to beat the good teams in their division too.  Heading into the final 5 weeks of the regular season, they'll have plenty of opportunities to do so.

The Yanks have 34 games remaining this season, 25 of them against AL East opponents.  Only 10 of them will be at home, with 15 on the road, and 19 of them are against the Rays, Orioles, and Red Sox.  They're in the middle of a 16-game stretch against nothing but AL East teams and even after last night's loss they're still 6-2 in those 8 games, so they're off to a good start.  They've got 3 more against the Jays on the road and then 3 against the O's at home after this series, and if they want to keep moving forward in the playoff race they can't have more results like last night's.

6 back in the division, 4 back from the second Wild Card, and plenty of games against 3 of the teams ahead of them in those races.  The Yankees have done a great job dragging themselves out of their grave these last 2 weeks, and they now control a small part of their destiny.  If this is really a playoff-caliber team, they need to prove it against their main playoff chase competition.

The Yankees' Standing In The AL East Right Now

(The champagne bath could be harder to come by in 2013.  Courtesy of The Daily News)

It's no secret by now that this offseason has been a strange one for the Yankees in many ways.  They can be best described as being "actively inactive," focusing all their time and energy on re-signing their own internal free agents while staying far on the periphery of all other free agent and trade rumors.  As I mentioned this morning, they've spent amounts of money right up there with the best of them, so it's not like they're completely sitting on their hands, but were it not for Alex Rodriguez's newest hip injury not a dollar of it would have gone towards a single player from outside the organization.  This offseason marked the first big step towards the 2014 payroll goal, and to their credit the Yankees have stayed on the path of the cheap and short-term.

This strategy has not gone unnoticed by their AL East competition.  Almost every other team in the division, with the exception of Baltimore, has been very active on the free agent and trade markets this offseason, picking up the slack and the players left for the taking by the Yankees electing to stand pat.  It's been interesting to say the least, as recent attempts by other clubs to try to step up and grab the "biggest big spender" torch away from the Yanks have yet to return big dividends (see: both teams in Los Angeles).  It's also a bit worrisome, as the Yankees' approach this offseason has opened a window of opportunity that every other team seems eager to jump through.

Pennants and championships aren't won in December, that much we know.  But the collection of moves that have been made (and not made) so far begs the question, are the Yankees still considered the king of the hill and the top of the heap in the AL East?  Should they be?

And The AL East Plot Thickens...

Points for effort and creativity on the part of the Toronto Blue Jays, who swooped in and got themselves a pretty nice haul yesterday in their massive 12-player salary dump trade with the Florida Miami Marlins.  With the Yankees still being on top looking down, the Orioles coming off a successful season and getting involved in the running for Josh Hamilton, the Rays holding a lot of valuable trade chips of their own, and the Fraud Sawx signing... David Ross to be their... backup catcher... whatever, Toronto had to do something drastic to keep up with the Joneses and this was it.

I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritty analysis here, but suffice it to say that the Jays improved the top of their lineup, improved their starting rotation, and improved their bench depth with this trade.  Add a healthy Jose Bautista back into the mix and this could be a much more effective offseason approach than the "hope our young starters come around" tactic they've used the past few seasons, and should make the AL East even more competitive than it already is.

To that point, how will this big swing by Toronto affect the Yankees' offseason plans, if at all?  On the one hand, this aggressive bid to compete for the division title could and normally would be the type of thing to make the Yankee front office scrap its payroll slashing plans and make some big moves of their own to beef up their roster.  On the other, this type of blatant fire sale by Jeffrey Loria could be exactly what reinforces the Steinbrenners' belief that getting under the luxury tax threshold is the right thing to do so they aren't cutting more checks to help line Loria's pockets.  Stay tuned, sports fans...

Setting The Stage For Game 162

(Hopefully it's not as stressful, but I'd take a repeat of this celebration tonight.  Courtesy of the AP)

I can't remember the last time the Yankees played a final regular season game with this much meaning.  And no, I'm not going to bother looking it up because there are plenty of other blogs out there that handle historical stuff better than mine.  It's been frustrating, agonizing, refreshing, and exciting watching this last month of slim-to-none division leads, and it all boils down to what should be an incredibly drama-filled night of baseball tonight.  The Yankees, after being in a pretty precarious spot last Sunday morning, have done what they needed to do and won their last 3 games, and they now find themselves in the driver's seat tonight with the man who has been their most consistent pitcher this season on the mound against a guy who has been absolute dog crap for his team.  So what should we be looking for tonight?  Here's my thoughts after the jump.

Let's Take A Minute And Reset The Landscape

July was a bit of an eventful month, huh?  The Yankees ended it on a very rough 3-9 streak that saw them lose 6 games by 1 run right after starting the month 10-4 and looking like they were going to run away and hide with the division title sometime in early August.  They blew early leads, they blew late leads, and they made a couple comebacks that fell just short, all adding to a growing sense of frustration amongst the fans and some of the more pot-stirring writers.  Things have gotten a tad bit frazzled over the last 2 weeks.  I know I've been a bit more emotional and vocal with my displeasure this week, and the folks I write with for TYA can attest to that.  But as we rip another page off the calendar and put July in the rearview, I think it's important to take a step back and look at the overall landscape of Yankeeland heading into the stretch run of the season.

5 Reasons To Be Confident That The Yankees Will Win The AL East

Just to be clear, before anyone bookmarks this post to point back to in October if the Yankees don't win the division, this is not me coming out and saying that the Yankees are absolutely going to win the AL East this year.

/checks the title of the post

Crap.  Maybe it is.  Well whatever.  I'm feeling pretty good about where the Yankees stand right now and I'm not going to apologize for it.  The doom and gloom of May has been replaced by a very successful June, and that's despite the fact that there are still some glaring problem areas in the team's overall performance.  The Yankees have risen while the rest of their AL East competition has either floundered or treaded water, and with 90 games to play to iron out their remaining issues there's reason to be confident.  That confidence comes with plenty of "ifs," "ands," and "buts" attached to it, and this season has already taught us that even the most unthinkable can happen, but here are 5 things that can counter a lot of the IA&Bs as we move closer to the 2nd half of the season.