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With Two Wins, the Yankees Shake Up the Standings

Bhupender SainiAug 18, 2021Sports
With Two Wins, the Yankees Shake Up the Standings

On July 4, the Yankees were a mess.

They weren’t hitting, pitching or fielding well. Their record (42-41) and playoff prospects (five and a half games out of the second American League wild card spot) reflected it. Fans wanted people fired. And only days before, General Manager Brian Cashman warned that changes were coming if the team’s play didn’t improve, bluntly saying the team was as bad as it could be.

That felt distant on Tuesday at Yankee Stadium, where the roars from the stands and the home dugout throughout the day were the latest proof that the Yankees’ trajectory has changed dramatically.

On Wednesday morning, the Yankees woke up tied with the Oakland Athletics for the American League’s top wild card spot. By sweeping Boston in a doubleheader on Tuesday in the Bronx, the Yankees caught up to the sputtering Red Sox and then leapfrogged them in the playoff race by a percentage point (a .567 winning percentage to .566). It was the first time since May 15 that the Yankees had a share of second place in their division.

“It’s obviously a great feeling looking at the standings now,” Yankees first baseman Luke Voit said late Tuesday night.

In a matter of six weeks, the Yankees have not only erased a sizable deficit but a lot of doubt about their prospects. They were among the preseason favorites to contend for a division and World Series title, but the Yankees showed only fleeting glimpses of that over the first three months of the 2021 campaign. A solid May was sandwiched by a maddening April and June.

There were injuries, sure, but that hadn’t stopped the Yankees, a team with a lot of resources, in previous seasons. Their hitting, though, long a strength, was suddenly failing them. Coupled with poor defense, and troubles on the mound in June, it seemed like the team was going nowhere.

To make matters worse, their rivals were sending them further into a tailspin. The Yankees began the season with seven straight losses to the Red Sox, who initially weren’t expected to be a top contender but sat in the first place in the A.L. East for most of the year. On July 4, perhaps the nadir of the Yankees’ season so far, the Red Sox had an A.L. best 53-32 record and led the Tampa Bay Rays by four and a half games in the division.

The roles, though, have flipped thanks to the Yankees’ improved play, unlikely contributions from fill-ins, and a jolt of talent acquired by Cashman before the July 30 trade deadline. Undermined by poor defense and pitching of late, the Red Sox are 16-21 since July 4 while the Yankees are a major league-best 26-11. (The defending A.L. and division champion Rays surged into first place on July 31.)