There Is No Easy Part of the Schedule

The Yankees got through 12 games against 4 potential Playoff teams with a 7-5 record. And we were told that their last 13 games of the season were going to be the easy part of their schedule. 

Let's get something straight: There is no easy part of the schedule. Not with the Yankees' tendency to stop hitting one game and let the bullpen blow it the next.

Last Thursday night, the Yankees began a 4-game series against the Baltimore Orioles, at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore. Max Fried pitched 7 innings, allowing 3 hits and 1 walk, striking out 13. Paul Blackburn went the rest of the way, completing a 3-hit, 2-walk, 15-strikeout shutout. The Yankees scored 2 runs in the 1st inning, 1 in the 5th, and 4 in the 7th. Final score Yankees 7, Orioles 0. So far, so good.

But the Friday night game would be so frustrating. Will Warren didn't pitch badly over the 1st 5 innings, giving up a home run, a double, a single, and a walk, but that was it. But Orioles starter Trevor Rogers only allowed 2 walks and a hit batsman over the 1st 5. But he mishandled a grounder to start the 6th, and it led to 2 runs.

That's not what cost the Yankees the game, though. In the 7th, Austin Slater -- who is 32, an outfielder, which we already have plenty of, and was batting .236 for the awful Chicago White Sox, but Brian Cashman thought him worth acquiring, anyway -- singled, and Jazz Chisholm hit a home run. Outside of that, despite playing in Camden Yards, which we only had 2 singles, 3 walks and a hit batsman. Orioles 4, Yankees 2.

Fortunately, the Yankees have 2 aces. Well, 3, but Gerrit Cole missed the entire season due to injury. Well, 2, because if Cole hadn't missed the entire season due to injury, Fried never would have been acquired. Carlos Rodón started on Saturday night, and allowed just 1 run over 7 innings.

The Yankees staked him -- stook him? -- to a 3-run lead in the 1st inning, thanks to Giancarlo Stanton hitting his 450th career home run. Yankees 6, Orioles 1.

Is Stanton going to the Hall of Fame? Here's a list of all the players eligible for the Hall, but not yet in, with at least 450 home runs, and no credible steroid suspicion: Carlos Delgado, with 473; and Adam Dunn, with 462. That's it. That's the list. And Stanton beats Dunn in most career categories, and isn't far behind Delgado in most. If Stanton gets to 473 -- and, unless he gets seriously hurt, which he has before, he should get there in the 1st half of next season -- then he deserves to get in.

The Sunday afternoon game looks to the untrained eye like it was easy. It wasn't. Cam Schlittler pitched into the 6th inning, and the Yankee bullpen was mostly rested. But over the 1st 9 innings, the Yankees got just 1 run, on a Ben Rice single in the 6th. But the Yankees stranded runners on 1st and 2nd in the 6th, 1st and 3rd in the 7th, and 1st and 2nd in the 8th.

So we got extra innings -- or, as Yankee broadcaster Michael Kay likes to call them, both "free baseball" and "bonus cantos." This time, the stupid "ghost runner" rule worked in our favor. Starting the top of the 10th with Trent Grisham on 2nd, Aaron Judge drew a walk. Cliché Alert: Walks can kill you, especially the leadoff variety. Cody Bellinger singled. The bases were loaded and nobody was out. And Rice hit a grand slam. A grand salami with rice. 5-1 Yankees.

Austin Slater struck out. Chisholm hit another home run. 6-1. José Caballero doubled. Paul Goldschmidt walked. Anthony Volpe singled Caballero home. 7-1. That would be the final, making a winning pitcher out of David Bednar.

The Yankees had taken 3 out of 4, all 3 by blowout. But looks can be deceiving: 1 more Oriole run on Sunday, and it would have been an embarrassing split for the Bronx Bombers.

*

The Yankees go into the last week of the regular season at 88-68. With 6 games to play, they are 2 games behind the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League Eastern Division -- although it's really 3 games. In the old days, had the teams finished in a tie, there would have been a Playoff, as in 1978 with the Boston Red Sox, the Boston Tie Party, the Bucky Dent Game. But with the expansion of the Playoffs, the rules have been changed: Now, if 2 teams are tied for a Division's lead at the end, the 1st tiebreaker is not a head-to-head game to come, it's the head-to-head games already played, and the Jays have that tiebreaker.

The Yankees have the best record of any of the Wild Card teams, and their "Magic Number" to clinch a Playoff berth is 3. As things currently stand, they would have the 4th seed, and, in the Wild Card Round, home-field advantage against the 5th seed, the Red Sox. Then again, the Cleveland Guardian have been surging, and the Detroit Tigers collapsing, so the AL Central is still up for grabs. As is the AL West, with the Seattle Mariners having taken over the lead from the Houston Astros. So it's those 7 teams going for 6 slots. Actually, the Jays have already clinched at least a Playoff berth, so it's really 6 teams going after 5 slots.

Here's the Yankees' 6 remaining games, all at home, with what are currently presumed to be the starting pitchers, with all games on the YES Network unless otherwise stated:

* Tonight, starting a series against the White Sox, 7:05: Luis Gil.

* Tomorrow, 7:05: Fried.

* Thursday, 7:05: To be determined. It's Warren's place in the rotation, but I wouldn't start him. But then, I don't make that decision. Nor does Aaron Boone. Cashman does.

* Friday, starting a series against the Orioles, 7:05: TBD. It's Rodón's place in the rotation.

* Saturday, 1:05: TBD. It's Schlittler's place in the rotation.

* Sunday, the regular-season finale, 3:05: TBD. 

And, while were at it... Ha, ha, ha, another Mets choke.