AL East Coming Down to The Wire

The Yankees took care of their business as they wiped the floor with the 101-loss White Sox and the sweep pulled them even with the Blue Jays in the AL East, though they still haven’t surpassed them because Toronto holds the tiebreaker. Still, the Yankees have given themselves a chance in a race that I didn’t think they had any chance being in going into the final three games.  Lets get to it.

Well, you had to figure that the Blue Jays weren’t going to collapse completely, and thus, the AL East race will go right down to the final weekend of the regular season.

Toronto was clearly feeling the heat as it lost Tuesday and Wednesday at home to the Red Sox while the Yankees were beating the White Sox twice, and that pulled New York into a virtual tie for first place in the AL East. Virtual because while their records are the same, the Blue Jays won the season series against the Yankees so technically, they were still leading the division via that important tiebreaker.

And then nothing changed Thursday night as the Yankees completed their sweep of the lowly White Sox and Toronto manned up and Jays salvaged the last game against Boston. Both teams are 91-68, but the Yankees still have to play one game better this weekend as they host Baltimore while Toronto hosts Tampa Bay.

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Look, most of you have been reading the series recap newsletters twice a week since late March so you know I was down on the Yankees for much of that time, certainly throughout the summer when they played so poorly and turned a 7.5-game lead in the division into a 6.5-game deficit as late as Aug. 23.

I didn’t think they had a snowball’s chance in hell of going into the last weekend with a legitimate chance to win the division, and thanks to Detroit’s seismic collapse, the Yankees could actually finish with the best record in the American League and have homefield advantage throughout the AL side of the playoff bracket.

“It’s unbelievable, but that’s baseball, especially with the expanded postseason,” Aaron Judge said when he was asked about the craziness that has gone down in the playoff chase. “You’re going to have some moments like this where teams are going back and forth. When I go home, I turn on MLB Network, check all the scores, see what’s happening. It’s pretty amazing.”

It has been. The Yankees have now gone 29-12 since Aug. 11, the best record in MLB in that period, and at the very least, they have locked up the top wildcard spot which means if they don’t win the division and earn a bye, they will at least host the best-of-three wildcard series, most likely against the Red Sox, but possibly the Guardians or Tigers.

“We’ve been through a lot already, this is the first box to check, right?” Boone told the team amid the champagne celebration in the clubhouse Tuesday when the Yankees officially clinched their playoff berth. “We’ve gotta get in - we’re in. Don’t take that shit for granted. We are in the playoffs, we’ve got a lot more to do, right? We’ve got a lot of bigger goals. But enjoy this, celebrate this right now and come get ’em tomorrow.”

To their credit, the Yankees did get the White Sox after he said that on Wednesday and Thursday. It was a series they absolutely had to sweep if they were going to entertain any realistic hope of passing the Blue Jays, and they did it.

Kudos, but the job is not done and they realize it. “Great,” Boone said of clinching at least a home wildcard series, “but that’s not the world we’re living in right now.”

The Yankees want the division, badly. Being the top wildcard team is fine, but it still means they have to play an extra series and in baseball, the postseason is already a huge crapshoot so having to play extra games can be scary. Ask the Brewers and Astros who suffered big upsets in the 2024 wildcard round, or the Brewers and Blue Jays in 2023 who were sent packing in shocking fashion.

Also, that would mean they wouldn’t have their best pitchers - Max Fried and Carlos Rodon - available at the start of the divisional round if they were to advance. But I guess that’s a bridge they’ll have to cross later.

“It’s been a challenging year, no question about it,” Boone said. “But at my core — and especially as we got here to the final couple months. … I (felt) like our best baseball was absolutely ahead of us and hopefully is still ahead of us.”

It needs to be because they may have to win all three against the Orioles, and that will not be easy because Baltimore will be sending to the mound their three best starters.

“We’re gonna see (Trevor) Rogers, (Tomoyuki) Sugano and (Kyle) Bradish, all guys who can shut you down, so we’ve got our work cut out for us,” Boone said.

Sept. 23: Yankees 3, White Sox 2

➤ Man, for 8 ½ innings this game was shaping up to be a colossal disaster. The Yankees could not afford to lose any of these games to this awful team, but they were down 2-1 heading to the bottom of the ninth and I admit, I didn’t have a whole lot of faith. Thankfully, the White Sox decided to be the White Sox just in time and it allowed the Yankees to clinch their playoff berth.

➤ With lefty Brandon Eisert on the mound, Anthony Volpe and Austin Wells, of all the guys, led off with back-to-back singles to get the rally started, but then Trent Grisham grounded into what felt like a crushing double play as Volpe took third. Ah, but after Judge was walked intentionally, Cody Bellinger - who has been pretty brutal lately - drew a seven-pitch walk and on ball four, Eisert threw the ball to Hoboken and Volpe scampered home with the tying run. Then Jose Caballaro put up a gritty nine-pitch at bat before dumping a bloop single into center. For the life of me, I don’t know why Michael Taylor - who had just been inserted into center for his defense - didn’t try to dive to catch it because it looked like he could have caught it. Instead it dropped and Judge scored the winning run from second. It was the first walk-off hit of Caballaro’s career and it came at a pretty damn good time.

➤ Luis Gil pitched well, but he got burned when a ball dropped between Judge and Grisham for a single, one that either player could have caught, and then three pitches later Colson Montgomery hit a long two-run homer that put the Sox in the lead.

➤ The Yankees had opened the scoring in the second when Jazz Chisholm walked, stole second, took third on a Volpe single and scored on Wells’ double. With a chance for more, Grisham struck out and after Judge was intentionally walked, Bellinger flied out with the bases loaded. That was part of a night where the Yankees left 11 men on base and were lucky that didn’t burn them.

What they said in Tuesday’s clubhouse

• Judge: “It takes a lot of hard work to get to this point. It’s a long season. Our ultimate goal is to win our division. It’s still right there for us.”

• Caballaro: “I gotta get the job done. That’s the only thing I was thinking of. We’re going for everything, man. We’re going for the trophy.”

Sept. 24: Yankees 8, White Sox 1

➤ This one began with some aggravation. The first three Yankees in the bottom of the first walked and Stanton went to 3-0 yet somehow they did not score a single run. Giancarlo Stanton flied out, and Ben Rice and Paul Goldschmidt whiffed and that sure felt like an ominous omen, especially when the Sox scored a run in the second off Fried thanks to two singles and a sac fly.

➤ Instead, the Yankees got off the mat in the bottom of the second as Volpe doubled, Grisham drew a two-out walk, and Judge hit his 50th homer of the season to make it 3-1. Then in the third, Rice tripled and scored on Goldschmidt’s single, and he later scored on Chisholm’s double and it was 5-1 and essentially over.

➤ Fried went seven innings and never allowed another run as the White Sox managed just two hits and two walks the rest of his outing which lowered his final ERA to 2.86. He also set career highs in wins (19), innings (195.1), and strikeouts (189).

➤ Devin Williams continued his recent dominance with a 1-2-3 eighth. Since his last meltdown on Sept. 3 against Houston Williams has pitched seven straight scoreless innings allowing three hits and one walk with 10 strikeouts. That’s the guy the Yankees thought they were getting, and maybe this is the guy he’ll finally be when it matters most in October.

➤ Not that they needed insurance, but Grisham hit a two-run homer and Judge a solo shot that made it 8-1. It was Judge’s 46th career multi-homer game and he joined Babe Ruth (1920, 1921, 1927, 1928), Mark McGwire (1996-99) and Sammy Sosa (1998-2001) as the only players with four seasons of at least 50 homers.

➤ This was the first time that Rice caught a Fried start and it’s obvious why that happened. Rice has been red-hot at the plate and come the postseason, he may get starts at catcher over Wells, especially if they’re facing a lefty because in those situations, Goldschmidt will play first base and Boone needs Rice in the lineup.

What they said in Wednesday’s clubhouse

• Fried on Rice catching him: “It was great, great to finally work together. He’s been working really hard. Especially the transition of playing a lot of first base and then catching sporadically and then getting more starts.”

• Boone on Fried’s season: “Just everything you would want from a guy at the top of your rotation. He’s just such a pro, so talented, such a great teammate, such an important part of our pitching culture now here. Navigated the season so well. He was a horse for us, an ace, and now looking forward to giving him the ball in October.”

Sept. 25: Yankees 5, White Sox 3

➤ In many ways, the Yankees were lucky they were playing the White Sox at this crucial point in the schedule. Just like Wednesday, they had the bases loaded with no outs in the first inning but a great chance to take quick control petered out with just one run scoring. Grisham singled, Judge doubled and Bellinger walked, but after Rice nubbed one to the pitcher to get the run in, Stanton and Chisholm grounded. Aggravating, and against a better team, that might have come back to haunt them.

➤ Also like Wednesday after the Yankees stubbed their toe in the first, the White Sox then took the lead. They tied it with a run in the second off Carlos Rodon on a single, hit batsmen, sacrifice and a sac fly, and then Taylor hit a rather surprising two-run homer in the fourth to give the Sox a 3-1 lead.

➤ Rodon settled down and wound up getting through six innings allowing just the three runs on four hits and a walk, and then he was put into position for his 18th and final win of the regular season because of a big fifth inning that decided the game.

➤ With one out, Judge and Bellinger singled, so Sox starter Davis Martin was yanked in favor of lefty Tyler Gilbert and like so many things for Chicago, it didn’t work out. He walked Rice to load the bases, and Stanton - the only righty hitter in this lane - followed with a 109 mph grounder to third that got past Curtis Mead, a play that looked makeable and probably should have been an inning-ending double play with Stanton running. With the grass wet, the ball slowly made its way into left field and all three runners scored to put the Yankees ahead for good.

➤ In the seventh, a little breathing room as Stanton walked, Jasson Dominguez pinch ran, and he was able to score from second when Wells ripped one to right-center off the wall, just missing a two-run homer.

➤ Luke Weaver had a nice 1-2-3 seventh, Williams got the first two men in the eighth, wobbled when he allowed a walk and a single, then breathed a sigh of relief when Bellinger got a great jump on a liner into the left-center gap and he made the catch. Had that gotten past him, the game would have been tied. David Bednar then closed it out easily in the ninth to complete the sweep.

➤ Judge was intentionally walked twice, raising his season total to 36 which is a new AL record, breaking a mark set by Boston’s Ted Williams in 1957. It’s the most in MLB since Albert Pujols had 38 for the Cardinals in 2010.

What they said in Thursday’s clubhouse

• Rodon on his outing: “It was good enough. I just tried to attack the zone. There’s a couple of pitches I’d like back, but I’m happy with the win. I can’t be upset. (His season performance is) kind of hard to think about now because we’ve got some pretty important games coming up, but it was good. I’m just glad I was able to go out there and post every five or six days, compete and try to win every game.”

• Stanton on his key double: “He threw me a heater first pitch and a cutter the second and left it out over the plate and I was able to be on time and hit it hard.”

The regular-season comes down to this last series at home against the Orioles who are fresh off a 6-5 walk-off win over the Rays Thursday. For the season the Yankees are 6-4 against Baltimore thanks to winning three of four last weekend at Camden Yards, but this will not be easy as the Orioles will have their three best starting pitchers for these games, a couple of whom have given New York all kinds of trouble.

Here are some of their top players to watch:

➤ 1B-DH Ryan Mountcastle: It has been tough, injury-plagued season but he always seems to hit well against the Yankees.

➤ SS Gunnar Henderson: No doubt a frustrating season for the 2023 AL rookie of the year as his home run count went from 37 last year to 16 this season with an OPS that is .112 points lower.

➤ C Adley Rutschman: Once considered the best rising catcher in MLB and a two-time All-Star, he has been in a slump since the middle of 2024. He just returned from the injury list this week.

➤ RP Kade Strowd: He has been up and down between the majors and minors but he has become a nice find with a 1.73 ERA in 24 relief appearances.

The pitching matchups are scheduled to be:

• Friday, 7:05, YES: Will Warren (4.35 ERA) vs. Trevor Rogers (1.35) who earned the only win for the Orioles in last weekend’s series when he held the Yankees scoreless on one hit across six innings and has been one of the AL’s best pitchers all year.

• Saturday, 1:05, YES: Cam Schlittler (3.27) vs. Tomoyuki Sugano (4.54) who has made three starts against the Yankees and has pitched to a 5.40 ERA because his last two have not gone well.

• Sunday, 3:05, YES: Luis Gil (3.29) vs. Kyle Bradish (2.25) who last Sunday was great against the Yankees and will be a big problem if this ends up being a must-win for the division.