As we reach the end of August, the Yankees are firmly in second place in the AL East and more importantly, in second place in the AL. Roughly 30 games are left to be played, which should be more than enough time to chase down the dastardly Red Sox to win the East.
Top sites such as 5dimes you can see their review using the link have the Yankees listed to win 94.5 games this season. Looking at the schedule and the rate that the Bombers are going, it looks like they could have a 100-season.
Upcoming Series: Tigers, Athletics, Mariners
The Yanks have only played Detroit 3 so far during the regular season. The second two-thirds of their April series was postponed. The Yankees took that game 8-6, then split a pair of games in the beginning of May.
Although the Tigers are in no position to make a run at the playoffs, this isn’t a series that the Yanks can afford to relax on. We can expect Detroit to start Francisco Liriano for Thursday’s game. The lefty is having a rough season with a 4.82 ERA and nine losses over just three wins. Most notably, Francisco has a horrific stats against right-handed hitters. .388 OBS and .495 slugging. And the Yanks lineup is loaded with potent right handed batters.
Jordan Zimmermann and Luis Severino should be toeing the rubber on Friday. Zimmermann is 6-6 for the Detroit but riding a 4.38 ERA and 1.27 WHIP. the key difference between him and Liriano is run support. It should be noted that Zimmermann has had tough luck during day games, racking up a 6.02 ERA and four of his six losses under the light of day. He pitches markedly better, (1.83 ERA) during games that start at 7:00 pm or later. Right vs. Left is nearly equal, but slugging and overall OPS is a bit worse vs. right-handers at .503 and .803 respectively. Looking at these trends, Zimmermann could have a very hard day in the Bronx on Friday.
Pitching matchups are still unknown for Saturday, but to keep up with the Red Sox, the Yankees need to take at least two out of three off of the Tigers in this home stretch before they go out west to face the resurgent Athletics and Mariners.
West Coast Stint
The series against the Athletics and Mariners are essential. The A’s are battling it out with the Astros for 1st-place in the AL West. At this point, either of those two teams could end up winning out and getting the shoe-in playoff spot. The Mariners are only seven games behind the A’s so this biggest competition for the wildcard spot is coming out of this division.
The AL Central is pretty much a giveaway for the Indians at this point. They would have to go on an epically bad run to lose the lead. The Twinnies are next in line in the Central, and they are 14 games behind the Mariners at the time of writing this and roughly 19 behind the A’s. By the look of how things are shaping up, if the Yankees can’t catch the Redsox, they will be most certainly be facing either the Astros or the A’s or possibly the Mariners in the wildcard game. Right now the Astros and A’s are each just a few games back on the Yankees. So, the Yanks have to whittle down Seattle’s and Oakland’s records as much as possible to make sure that we don’t see the Athletics and Mariners or Astros and Mariners facing off in the AL wildcard game.
Hold on to your hats, folks. September and October are going to be amazing for Yankees fans.