The Yankees were 10.5 games back on the Red Sox back on July 6. When they woke up on Aug. 18, roughly six weeks later, they had pulled even with Boston, even holding the advantage in the standings thanks to percentage points.
Even with a handful of seemingly back-breaking losses scattered about the past month and a half, the Yankees have put together the league’s best record since July 6, a drastic turnaround that now has the team in a playoff spot.
That accomplishment is not something the Yankees ignore, even while they know there is plenty of work left to be done.
“Yeah, you know where you are in the standings, sure,” Aaron Boone told Craig Carton and guest host Kevin Connolly on Wednesday. “At the same time…I don’t like to project. We got another important one tonight, and the good thing is, we’re in a position now where we’re very much in control of our destiny. We’ve got 42 games left. Bottom line is if we play well, we’re gonna put ourselves in a good position, and we’re in control of that and don’t need help from anyone else. Hopefully we can continue to play the kind of baseball we expect.”
Tuesday’s doubleheader sweep of the Red Sox helped the Yanks gain two games on their hated rivals in just a few hours, and now sit just five games back of the division with about six weeks left in the season. Suddenly, the divisional crown doesn’t seem so out of reach.
“There’s been an urgency around us, and around our club, for awhile now,” Boone said. “We’ve played with that kind of energy and urgency, and we understand it needs to continue.
“It’s a hungry group. It’s a group that wants to do something special, and we know we have to play well to do that.”
Nobody has played better baseball than the Yankees since Fourth of July weekend, and nobody has played better in close games than the Yanks have all season. It may be a surprise to many given how many epic collapses the Bombers have endured this season, but in games decided by one or two runs, the Yanks have the best record in baseball and the most games finished with that small a margin. They added two more to that total on Wednesday, beating Boston by two in each game.
It comes at the cost of an emotional toll for Boone, but the Yankees keep finding ways to win and bounce back from tough losses.
“We’ve played in so many close games, that every night’s been nip and tuck and just nail-biting and on the edge of your seat, but I think it’s also made everyone very comfortable in those situations, and playing in those situations, and everyone is just so invested in how we can win a game,” Boone said. “When you have everyone with that kind of mindset, strip some of the playing for yourself and all that that, where it’s ‘what can I do to help us win a game tonight?’ You can feel that around our club right now.”
This type of stretch was hard to see two months ago, when the Yanks were three months into what was shaping up to be a disappointing season given the high expectations the team carried into the year. But now the Yankees are looking like a contender, getting more reinforcements back from injury, and are looking like the team Boone always knew they would be. It just came together later than expected, and just as they bounce back from devastating losses, they have bounced back from a large deficit in the playoff chase, and now can control their own destiny.
“We’ve had a handful of our worst losses in the midst of us playing our best baseball,” Boone said. “It could have derailed us at any time. But I think even in the worst of days this year…I always believed there was this underlying confidence with our group that we know we’re good, we’re gonna get there, but it just took us awhile to get to that point. But that confidence was always there.”
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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