Ten games. That’s a nice even number and that’s how many games the Yankees have to make up in the second half of the season to catch the Red Sox. More importantly, they’re just nine games back in the loss column so one of those games the Yanks can make up just by winning. A big reason the deficit isn’t larger is because the Tigers helped us out by sweeping the Red Sox heading into the break.
The team MVP is a no brainer and that’s A-Rod. In fact he’s the league MVP right now and he’ll need to keep up his current pace if the Yankees are going to make a run. Jorge Posada is probably a close second with his best season of his career. The guy who has to step it up is Bobby Abreu. A .725 OPS isn’t going to cut it and we all know Abreu has it in him to put together a solid second half. He may not provide the power, but he can provide a great secondary table setter to Derek Jeter.
Johnny Damon also has to step it up, although we all know he’s been playing through an injury. His OPS is .683 and he’s hitting just .245. If there’s one positive, it’s that he’s stolen 15 bases without getting caught but even turning some singles into doubles probably doesn’t even get his slugging up to .400.
Here’s one odd thing in looking at the Yankees’ team statistics. You have A-Rod at 30 homeruns and no other then Hideki Matsui with 11, no other Yankee has more then nine. Last year, the Yankees had four players with 23 or more. One guy the Yankees are missing is Gary Sheffield, who’s shining at DH for the Tigers.
And we haven’t gotten to the pitching. I’ll give them a chance to shine in the Yanks upcoming series before getting on them. Anyway, I really enjoyed Bronx is Burning. A little overly dramatic but it’s a cool hour of television especially after following the team over at Yankees History.
Next up is four against the Devil Rays. Three of four is pretty much a neccesity and sweep would always be nice. The Red Sox take on the Blue Jays so the Yanks will either pick up ground on the Red Sox along with the Jays or pass them up in the standings. One of them has to lose, which is a good thing.
