Can the Yankees fail to make the playoffs for the fifth time in six years? Considering the Yankees’ position in the standings this entire season, that seems to be a preposterous question. Don’t, however, look at where the Yankees have been the first five months of the season; look at where they are now.
Right now they are furiously fighting to keep their heads above the waters that are filled with sharks known as the Twins, the Angels and the Orioles. With four weeks left in the season, there are more than enough games for two of those three teams to overtake the Yankees and send them home to an unwanted and unexpectedly extended vacation.
In fact, if you want to be more inclusive, you might add the Rangers and the Rays, a pair of .500 teams, as well as the Mariners and the Royals, who began the weekend with under .500 records but only 4 ½ games behind the Yankees.
Until now, the Yankees have had no reason to fear or even suspect a late-season letdown. Through the first five months of the season (before the weekend), according to the Elias Sports Bureau, the Yankees spent the vast majority of their time in post-season position: 59 days in first place in the American League East, 78 days in the A.L. wild-card lead and 7 days in the second wild-card position.
The only time the Yankees weren’t in a spot that would qualify them for October was the first two weeks of the season. The Yankees, however, haven’t been dominant all season. They hit their peak three and a half months ago, June 12, when they beat the Angels, 5-3, for their sixth straight victory.
That win gave the Yankees a 38-23 record and what would be a season-high 4-game division lead and a season-high 15 games over .500. Since then, the Yankees have a 34-40 record (through Saturday).
That June 12 date is significant because what the Yankees have done since then is linked to what Aaron Judge has or hasn’t done in the same segment of the season, prompting the idea that as Judge goes so go the Yankees. At Yankee Stadium, when Judge comes to bat, fans stand, some wearing black robes and white wigs and some holding signs that say “All rise.”
At a game last week one fan who stood was a judge, actually a justice, a justice of the United States Supreme Court. Sonia Sotomayor, a resident of the Bronx, is a longtime Yankees fan, but she hasn’t had any effect on Judge’s reversal of hitting fortunes.
After the June 12 game, he was hitting .347 and leading the league in just about every important hitting department. But he stopped hitting and started striking out. The rookie right fielder struck out 72 times in his first 59 games but has struck out 107 times in his last 71 games. After hitting .347 in leading the Yankees to that 38-23 record in the first two and a half months, he has batted .215, dropping his average to .276 and that and most of his other statistics out of the league leaders.
The pitchers obviously figured out how to pitch to Judge, as they do with all rookies, and Judge hasn’t adjusted to their changes.
Judge, though, has remained an integral member of the Yankees’ pursuit of the division-leading Red Sox, whose lead the Yankees cut to 4 ½ games by winning two of the first three games of their four-game series. That is the irony of the Yankees’ position. They are simultaneously fighting for the A.L. East title and trying to hold off teams challenging them for a wild-card ticket to the post-season.
The Yankees haven’t spent much time looking over their shoulders, perhaps following the advice of Satchell Paige, who said, “Don’t look back; something might be gaining on you.”
If the Yankees were to ignore Paige and looked over their shoulder, they would see the Twins only a game behind them, the Angels 2 ½ games behind and the Orioles 3 ½ back.
They might be tempted to disregard the Orioles, but 7 of their remaining 26 games after Sunday are with Baltimore. Among their other remaining games are three with the Twins and a total of 10 with three other wishful thinkers – the Rangers, the Rays and the Royals.
Except for a three-game series with the Indians, the Twins have a seemingly softer schedule with their 26 remaining games. The Angels also have three games with the Indians, but in addition they have six games with the Astros, who have the league’s best record.
The only time the Yankees have played in the post-season in the last five years was as a wild card in 2015. The Astros shut them out in that one-game series.
The A.L. wild-card race has been so close contenders have had to play extra innings or go to the ninth inning before winning. We won’t include the Twins’ 17-0 romp over the Royals Saturday night.
Also in a Saturday night game, the Angels were losing to the Rangers, 4-2, with two out in the ninth when Luis Valbueno doubled and C.J. Cron homered. Martin Maldonado also doubled, but Brandon Phillips flied out, giving the Rangers a chance to win, but they didn’t. Yusmeiro Petit retired the Rangers one-two-three in the last of the ninth.
Jose Leclerc couldn’t do the same for the Rangers in the 10th. Instead he walked the first three batters, the first two scored on Kole Calhoun’s single, the third on Cron’s sacrifice fly and the Angels won, 7-4.
The Yankees’ 4-1 loss to the Red Sox Friday night opened the opportunity for the Twins to tie the Yankees for the wild-card lead. The Twins began the last of the ninth inning of their game trailing the Royals, 7-4. But for an inning-opening error by second baseman Whit Merrified, the Royals might have escaped the inning with that score because Kelvin Herrera, the Kansas City closer, retired the next two batters.
However, the Twins were still alive, and they took advantage of the error with Zack Granite drawing a walk and Brian Dozier getting hit by a Herrera pitch. That brought up Joe Mauer, the Twins’ most reliable hitter, and he singled home two runs and sent Byron Buxton to third, putting him 90 feet from tying the game.
Wanting none of that, Manager Ned Yost replaced Herrera with Scott Alexander, who promptly enhanced the Twins’ chances of winning by walking Jorge Polanco, loading the bases. Another walk would tie the game, a fact not lost on Yost, but he stayed with Alexander.
He made the right decision because Alexander struck out Rosario, preserving the Royals’ win and keeping the Twins a game behind the Yankees.
That same night the Orioles gained a 1-0 decision over Toronto in a 13-inning game. Manny Machado beat out a grounder to third for an infield single and raced home on Jonathan Schoop’s double to right-center field.
With games like these, it’s hard not to like wild cards, even though I don’t.
THE JUSTICE COMES TO SEE THE JUDGE
Sonia Sotomayor, an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, did not wear the traditional justice’s black robe when she sat in the Judge’s chamber at Yankee Stadium for a game last week.
The Judge’s chamber is a section of the upper right field stands. It is named, of course, for Aaron Judge, who did not hit a home run the night Sotomayor was there, though he hasn’t hit many home runs recently when anyone has been at the stadium. Sotomayor, who was born and raised and lives in the Bronx, visibly enjoyed herself nonetheless.
I had hoped to talk to her about her love of baseball and the Yankees and sent a request to the Supreme Court’s public information officer. I mentioned the March 1994 baseball hearing in which the National Labor Relations Board sought an injunction that would require the owners to restore the bargained work rules and conditions that they had replaced with rules of their own.
The players said they would end their strike and return to work if the injunction were granted.
The case went before Sotomayor, who was a United States District Court judge, and at the start of the hearing Judge Sotomayor said, “All I know about this case is what I’ve read in The New York Times.” I had covered the strike and the negotiations for The Times and was flattered that Sotomayor had made that statement.
The justice nevertheless declined my interview request.
“Thank you for your note regarding the possibility of interviewing Justice Sotomayor,” Kathleen Arber wrote in an e-mail. “The Justice asked me to pass along her appreciation for your interest and your note, but she must decline.”
I settled for talking with Randy Levine, the Yankees president, about the justice.
“She grew up in the Bronx,” Levine said. “She’s been to many, many Yankee games. This was her first this year. She comes to at least one game each year, maybe more. She loves the Yankees. She thought the Judge’s chambers was a fantastic idea.”
How did the justice wind up in the Judge’s Chamber? “We arranged for her to sit there,” Levine said, adding, “She’s a marvelous person.”
NO MORE PASSES FOR PETE
Bye, bye, Petey, we’re happy to see you go.
Finally, baseball is finished with Pete Rose. FOX Sports, for whom Rose was a post-season baseball analyst, has apparently banished Rose, just as Major League Baseball did in 1989, though he occasionally found ways back in with the commissioner’s blessing.
FOX has reacted to news reports that Rose committed illegal sexual acts with teenage girls. As with everything else in his life, Rose arrogantly thought he could get away with anything. But MLB nailed him in 1989, the Internal Revenue Service got him shortly afterward and now a courageous woman has come forward and disclosed publicly what he allegedly did to her when she was 14 years old.
That’s a trifecta of crimes for which Rose will never pay enough.
But I’m guessing the light has finally gone on in Commissioner Rob Manfred’s head, and he won’t be approving any more club requests to have Rose participate in club events for which fans would pay to see Rose perform carnival acts.