USA TODAY International Edition
Series wins pivotal to postseason push
The New York Yankees can match their best 25- game stretch this season with a victory today. They’ll have to repeat the feat — and maybe more — to return to the postseason.
“We need to win games. We need to win series,” says Yankees manager Joe Girardi, whose team would be 17- 8 since Aug. 9 if they beat the Chicago White Sox today and clinch one of those treasured series victories.
The Yankees’ best 25- game stretch at any point this season so far is 17- 8 — from April 4 to May 1 and also April 25 to May 21. But that was a vastly different team from the one that has been raising its level and boosting playoff hopes the past few weeks.
They score these days — taking pressure off starting pitchers such as Hiroki Kuroda, who is 11- 10 despite a 2.89 ERA. In fact, the Yankees have averaged 5.3 runs a game ( 116 in 22 games entering today) since Aug. 11 after scoring at a 3.7 clip before then. Three of their seven double- figure scoring outbursts this season have come in that span.
Aug. 11 is the day Alex Rodriguez got his first homer and RBI this season. He is hitting .273 with four homers and 10 RBI overall. That’s nice, but nothing compared with Alfonso Soriano, a July acquisition from the Chicago Cubs who has 10 homers, 30 RBI and 1.037 on- base- plus- slugging percentage ( OPS) since Aug. 11.
Then there’s Mark Reynolds, picked up as a free agent Aug. 16 after the Cleveland Indians let him go. He tweaked his hitting mechanics and took off with the Yankees, providing a .500 slugging percentage and a .875 OPS. His Indians numbers were .373 and .680.
But has the offense — which plowed through White Sox pitching in a 9- 1 win Monday — been rejuvenated in time? We’ll know quickly. After their series with the White Sox ends Wednesday, the Yankees’ next 11 games are against fellow American League East contenders Boston and Baltimore.
Separate themselves from the Orioles in their four games next week in Baltimore and gain ground on the AL East- leading Red Sox — four games at Yankee Stadium beginning Thursday and three the following weekend at Fenway Park — and the task becomes manageable.
Making up the eight- game deficit on the Red Sox isn’t really the issue — it’s more about getting into position to make their next- to- last series relevant.
That’s three home games against the Tampa Bay Rays, currently holder of the second AL wild card and three games ahead of the Yankees. The Rays are the only team with a winning record the Yankees will face over their final 12 games — and who wouldn’t want to be finishing the season against the Houston Astros with a playoff berth on the line?
Winning series means winning three in each of the upcoming fourgame series and two of three at Fenway Park. That’s an 8- 3 stretch — and that’s nearly imperative.
Consider: The Yankees must finish 21- 5 to match the 93 victories it took to reach last year’s AL playoffs. But 17- 8 could be enough. That would produce 90 victories, Tampa Bay’s current pace.