The Bronx is Back

Winston-Salem, NC – I’ve had this gut feeling since the Red Sox took a 14½ game lead in the American League East back in May. The Yankees are completely dominating teams right now. They remind me of the 1998 juggernaut – amassing homeruns, scoring in double digits every night, etc. If the Yankees do make the playoffs (in the preseason, I picked them as the Wild Card because of their offense), I don’t believe that their pitching staff will carry them very far. The pitching staffs between the 1998 team and this year’s aren’t in the same ballpark. Let’s compare:

1998 Starters
Starter / Record / Innings Pitched / Strikeouts / Walks / ERA
Pettitte / 16-11 / 216 / 146 / 87 / 4.24
Cone / 20-7 / 207 / 209 / 59 / 3.55
Wells / 18-4 / 214 / 163 / 29 / 3.49
Irabu / 13-9 / 173 / 126 / 76 / 4.06
O. Hernandez / 12-4 / 141 / 131 / 52 / 3.13

2007 Starters
Starter / Record / Innings Pitched / Strikeouts / Walks / ERA
Pettitte / 9-7 / 158 / 103 / 52 / 3.93
Wang / 13-6 / 139 / 67 / 37 / 3.94
Mussina / 8-7 / 114 / 73 / 24 / 4.50
Clemens / 4-5 / 72 / 49 / 19 / 4.00
Hughes / 2-0 / 21 / 22 / 7 / 4.64

The ’98 team matched their gaudy offensive numbers with some pretty impressive pitching statistics. IMO, the best way to tell how dominate a starter may be is to see if they average a strikeout per inning. Cone and El Duque were very good in that department. This year’s team possesses no starter with dominate stuff. Hughes may be that guy, but he hasn’t logged in enough innings yet.

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So, my godfather, a devout Yankees' fan, spouted off these statistics to me last Tuesday:

“On May 29th, the Yankees fell to a season-worst 14½ games out of first place and eight games under .500 at 21-29.

Since then? The Yankees have the best winning percentage in the majors in that span at 41-21 (.661), and have climbed back into the wild-card race.

With yesterday's 5-4 victory against the Blue Jays, the Yankees are a half-game back of the Detroit Tigers for the wild card. They were nine games out of the wild-card race on July 7th.”

So, at the height of the Yankees’ demise in late May/early June, I asked him if he thought the Yankees would make the playoffs. He responded by saying that if the Yankees were 10 games above .500 on August 10th, they will make it. Last Friday, the 10th, the Yankees were 63-51. Today, at 66-51, with 45 games left to go, including 9 against this year’s nemesis, the Orioles, they definitely have a shot. Although, their schedule is brutal for the rest of August:

• 3 vs. Baltimore
• 3 vs. Detroit
• 3 at Los Angeles
• 3 at Detroit
• 3 vs. Boston

Meanwhile, the Red Sox will face:

• 3 vs. Tampa Bay
• 3 vs. Los Angeles
• 3 at Tampa Bay
• 4 at Chicago
• 3 at New York

The remainder of August looks favorable to the Red Sox if they beat the teams that they’re supposed to beat. The Yanks took care of business against the lowly Devil Dogs and ChiSox, now the Red Sox need to do that to pad the lead.

My prediction: The Red Sox hang on to the division despite some bumps in the road. If the Twinkies don’t make their big second half run, the Tigers will take home the AL Central with the Yankees punching their playoff ticket via the Wild Card.