The Pinstriped Baseball Lane

If you have been following the New York Yankees from the start of the season, then you know they had a pretty strong start to the 2020 year. In the past two weeks though, they have been hard to watch because after running out of the gate with one of the best starts in franchise history, injuries once again struck the team and has certainly become a strong contributor to cooling down the hot start the Yankees began the season with. As a fan, it is pretty upsetting to watch the Yankees drop 10 of 14, many of them coming in close games where the team had held a lead in late innings.

Coming into 2020, I am sure that I wasn’t the only fan to think that the Yankees would continue their flourishing momentum from 2019. We saw a Yankee club plug every injury hole to climb to a 103-win season last season, but how long will that method work in this 2020 shortened season?

From having to deal with some very unorthodox bullpen troubles (both in the starting and back end of the pitching staff) to dealing with offensive troubles, the Yankees can’t quite figure how to get another hot streak going. It would seem that the offensive part of the club is not the same without its two top strugglers in Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge.

I don’t want to, but I have to say the following. To add deep insult to their abundance of injuries,  the Yankees were thoroughly bashed by the  Rays this year, falling four back in the loss column heading into the weekend. With just three weeks left in the season, catching the Rays will be a challenge to say the least, and the way this year has worked out, the Yankee-Boston has gone into the background and the Yankee-Rays rivalry has come to the forefront of the AL East standings.

By far, 2020 has brought upon us a very weird season that forced us to be witnesses to painful losses, absorb struggles that root from delays, and at times there have been serious doubts. Aside from those things, the 2020 season has brought many other weirdness, from doubleheaders galore to drone delays. It also brings the expanded playoff format and the likely playoff bubble format to the game, which most likely would put all teams in a neutral site when the October festivities begin.

 I am sure that I am not the only one to think that the normal postseason has to be one of the best blueprints in the world of sports.

This year, there is very little advantage to winning the division, as there is no Wild Card Game. Instead, there is just a three-game series at a neutral site, meaning that the battle for home field will be a subject to debate.

The way it is looking at the moment, the Yankees would face Cleveland in the first round, which of course wouldn’t be easy given that Shane Bieber will likely be getting the ball in game one, but Mike Clevinger is now in San Diego, and it would be a winnable series if the Yanks get some of their wounded weapons back by then. Of course, there are other competitors besides the Indians. The other opponents consist of the banged-up Astros and the White Sox, which should be winnable match-ups for the Yanks.

Honestly, all these series are in the Yankees reach when they all get back to full health.

Going forward, the Yankees have remaining games against the Orioles, Marlins and Red Sox, all beatable teams, even not at full strength. Two series against the Blue Jays won’t be easy, but that schedule certainly makes a top-five finish in the league well within reach, all while taking time to get relievers like Aroldis Chapman and Zack Britton back on track after missing time in an already shortened season. Hopefully we will also have some fiery bats back in the lineup soon. With the return of  Judge, Stanton and Torres off the IL, I would like to think that the offense will start clicking on a consistent basis again.

I think I speak for all Yankee fans when I say that we have seen a lot of ugliness during these past few seasons because they have come just with reaches of gain another title shot. Now, they are yet again facing another set of ugliness in last few weeks of this year’s regular season. As always the Yankees organization run on a World Series-or-Bust mentality, but if they don’t start winning a ton of games soon, then the team may be looking at a Wild Card contention game plan and that won’t guarantee a thing.