New York Yankees: Dissecting just how important September is for the Yanks
By Sam Friedman
After two polar opposite weekends, the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox are within just a few games of each other.
The Red Sox laid a fat egg this weekend, being swept by the surprisingly good Rays. This was the first time all season that the Red Sox were swept. During this time, the Yankees obliterated the Orioles, scoring 27 runs across four games.
Before we go any further with the Red Sox and Yankees, I must address the Orioles. No hyperbole needed, this is the worst baseball team that I have ever watched.
They simply do not care about winning baseball games. Shout out Adam Jones, the captain of this team. Instead of carrying them, he constantly looks like he wants nothing to do with Baltimore despite rejecting a trade to leave earlier this year making this even more of a mess.
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Anyway, back to the regular scheduled programming.
The Yankees and Red Sox are heading towards a great September. The Red Sox are beginning to smell a lot like chicken and beer. Deja-vu?.
To refresh, in 2011, the Red Sox famously blew a nine game lead in September. Beer and chicken were found in the bullpen during the monumental collapse.
The Yankees still have their work cut out for them, they still have to make up six games (as of writing), which is still one of the bigger division leads in baseball.
The scary part for Red Sox fans, is that Boston needs to play the Yankees in two of the last four series.
The schedule makers knocked this timing out of the park.
Now, what’s important is the lead up to the series. If the Sox gets hot again, then none of this matters, but as it stands now, the Yankees are trending up, and Red Sox are trending down.
Upcoming Schedules
After being swept by the Rays, the Red Sox square off with the Marlins, and then the White Sox.
Both of those teams are firmly in rebuild mode, a nice reprieve for Alex Cora and the Red Sox.
After these two series, the rest of September is not an easy road for the Red Sox. The Braves, Astros, Blue Jays, Mets, Yankees, Indians, Orioles, and Yankees again. Woof, that is not walk on the beach.
Outside of the two Red Sox series, the Yankees play the White Sox, Tigers, Athletics, Mariners, Twins, Blue Jays Orioles and Rays.
if you take the joint records of all these teams, at the time of this writing, the Red Sox remaining schedule’s combined wins/losses is 486-557, a winning percentage of .466%. The Yankees foes come in at 485-560, a winning percentage of .464%.
There’s no excuses on strength of schedule. The Yankees will return Aaron Judge and the rest of the bruised Baby Bombers, giving them a full roster. And finally, they play six of the last thirteen games against each other.
September promises to be fun.