Yankees officially are in playoffs, but the focus is on winning the AL East
The Yankees' Ben Rice celebrates after hitting a home run in the first inning against the Mets at Yankee Stadium on Sunday. Credit: Newsday/Thomas A. Ferrara
It was an inevitable moment and the Yankees celebrated it.
After winning Monday night’s series opener with the Twins, and clinching a spot in the postseason with the Blue Jays’ loss to the Tigers, the Yankees marked the achievement just as Aaron Judge and Aaron Boone said they would after Sunday’s 2-0 win over the Mets at the Stadium.
The Rays and Brewers both did it last week, the former raucously and the latter with a simple toast and an eye toward bigger things than just getting to October.
The 27-time World Series champion Yankees haven’t won a crown since 2009 and obviously have bigger things in mind. It was anyone’s guess though what it would look like.
Judge was asked if he felt comfortable with his celebrating a ninth playoff trip in 10 seasons and replied, “Of course. What are we talking about here?”
“We’re here for a World Series. We’re here to win,” he added. “It’s about getting into the postseason and giving ourselves a chance. If you don’t get in, you can’t win a World Series, right? So you’ve got to celebrate that.”
Boone explained that in a long season “when you have the opportunity to celebrate small successes — or big successes — we’ll try [to] do that.”
No telling how the late George Steinbrenner would hear their words, but it’s only a shade off his attitude that a season that doesn’t end with a World Series title is failure.
So what about those bigger accomplishment that the Yankees can attain before the end of the regular season. The biggest would be overtaking Tampa Bay for the AL East division title and first-round playoff bye. Second would be clinching the home field for all the games in the Best-of-3 AL Wild Card Series. No one would question a celebration after either of those.
Entering play Monday, the Yankees trailed the Rays by four games and both had 13 to play including four-head-to-head at the Stadium Sept. 22-24 beginning with a doubleheader. Fangraphs gave the Yankees a 9.7% chance to win the division. The Rays had won 25 games since the Aug. 3 trade deadline and Yankees 23.
But outside of their head-to-head games, what are the real challenges each has left? The Rays’ schedule looks tougher and could open the door for the Yankees.
Tampa Bay has two series against teams battling for playoff positioning, one at home against Boston and one at Philadelphia. Their other series is against the Athletics, a team that’s out of contention but did damage to playoff hopefuls Seattle and Toronto in the last 10 days.
The Yankees have one series with a legit playoff hopeful, in Arizona at the end of this week. Their other two series against the listing Twins — who entered Monday having lost seven of their last 10 games and will be without star Byron Buxton due to a season-ending hip injury — and an Orioles team they’ve gone 8-2 against.
The Yankees have to be very good to catch the Rays, but it doesn’t seem out of the question with a chance to pick up two or four games by winning the head-to-head series.
Boston is 3½ games behind the Yankees. But they have a harder schedule than either team ahead of them in the AL East. The only sub-.500 club left on their schedule is Texas, which went into Monday just one game behind Houston for the AL West division lead.
The Yankees last season learned how important these things they are trying to get really are. Being the top wild card allowed them to play Boston for three games at the Stadium and prevail in the taut AL Wild Card Series 2-1.
The Blue Jays awaited them because they had the tiebreaker and got a bye into the AL Division Series. And the Yankees had exhausted many of their resources just to get past Boston and were no match for Toronto.
It certainly looked like the Yankees were heading for a final two weeks with some celebrations in them. What they will be for and how big they will be is anybody’s guess.
n Schmidt returning
Boone said righthander Clarke Schmidt would be activated off the IL on Tuesday or Wednesday and pitch in relief.
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
