Yankees and rivals brace for a wild, wild East

LESS THAN 12 weeks from now, somebody is going to win the American League East.

Which team will emerge as the champion? Your guess is as good as ours.

“I don’t know if it will be a fiveteam drag-out, but I’m sure we’ll look on Sept. 20 and there will be three or four teams within three or four games of each other,” the Yankees’ Brett Gardner said. “That’s the way it usually is.”

The AL East might not be the best division in baseball, but it’s certainly shaping up as the most interesting as all five teams sit within striking distance of first place.

“I think it’s going to be one hell of a second half,” Orioles center fielder Adam Jones said.

The Yankees enter the season’s second half at 48-40, holding a 3.5game edge over the second-place Rays. Tampa Bay sits a half-game ahead of the Orioles, who are a half-game ahead of the fourthplace Blue Jays.

The last-place Red Sox are only 6.5 games behind the Yankees, making for a true five-team race with more than 70 games remaining on each team’s schedule as play resumes Friday following the fourday All-Star break.

“This is a first. I don’t remember

the last time that anything has been this close,” Toronto catcher Russell Martin said. “Now that there are wild cards out there, it’s going to be an interesting race. I feel like playoff baseball is going to start a little earlier this year than it has in the past.”

At last year’s All-Star break, the Orioles held a four-game lead over the Blue Jays and were five up on the Yankees, but the Rays and Red Sox were both 9.5 games out of first place.

This year, the four other teams are potentially one hot streak away from overtaking the Yankees, who have held at least a share of first place for 59 days this season.

“We have all the pieces we need to make a playoff run,” Mark Teixeira said. “Nothing is going to be given to us, obviously, and we have four quality teams below us. Any one of those teams could go on a run here and take over the lead, so we have to be on top of our game.”

Since 2010, each team other than the Blue Jays has at least one AL East title, while the division has had a different champ in each of the past three years.

The Yankees and Red Sox might have a significant financial edge over the other three clubs, but the Rays and Orioles have had enough recent success to know that the division is right there for the taking, especially since the five teams will mostly play each other during the season’s final month.

“Anybody can beat anybody on any given night,” Rays starting pitcher Chris Archer said. “It kind of plays to our benefit if we win, then we know that if they’re playing within the division we can gain a game that night. We legitimately feel like we can gain a game every night as long as we win.”

The July 31 trade deadline could become a huge factor in the race, especially if an impact pitcher such as Cole Hamels or Johnny Cueto winds up in the division for the season’s final two months.

“Lets see who makes a move and see what impact that can have,” Jones said. “Whoever figures it out, I think we’re all right there. We’re all good.”

The Blue Jays appear to be one big arm away from becoming the favorites, while the Red Sox are in dire need of rotation help now that Clay Buchholz is back on the disabled list. Boston, which was 10 games back on June 20, pulled within five games of first place thanks to an 8-2 run that ended when the Yankees took two of three at Fenway Park last weekend.

“I don’t know what the X-factor will be,” Red Sox infielder Brock Holt said. “I never felt like we played ourselves out of it. I felt like we were always still in it. It was nice to get on a roll there and build some confidence for the second half.”

The Yankees are a confident group heading into the second half, having posted their highest first-half winning percentage (.545) since 2012, when they were 52-33 (.612) before the break.

That, of course, was the last time the Yankees played in the postseason, something they are hoping to do this fall after two dark Octobers in the Bronx.

“I know the last couple of years have been a big disappointment,” Gardner said. “Nobody’s been as disappointed as us, the players. . . . We fully expect to get to the playoffs and make it to the World Series every year. Hopefully this will be the year that we get back.”