I just wanted to get this on the record before Joba blows away the Sox tonight so no one can say that I was influenced by tonight’s win (I apologize in advance to anyone who believes in jinxes should we lose tonight): despite what I said Saturday, and no matter if the Yanks win or lose tonight, I don’t believe we’re done by any means. In between enjoying some beverages and a bunch of beautiful women last night, MFH and I got to talking about the Yanks’ dire straights (cause, naturally, that’s what you do when you’re out with hot chicks) and MFH said something that kind of put things into perspective for me since it was coming from a Sox fan: “I’d never count the Yankees out, they are going to make a run.”
As Yankee fans, it’s pretty much ingrained in our nature to think the world is about to end when we find ourselves this far out of it this late in the season. And it doesn’t matter that we’ve dug ourselves out of these kinds of holes in ‘05 and ‘07, it’s just that we remember the good ol’ days in the late 90s/early 00s when we would bury teams by the All-Star break and spend the rest of the season adding spare parts and getting guys healthy for the post season. Even for someone like myself — who remembers when finishing within 10-games under .500 was thought to be a successful season all things considered — it’s hard to remain anchored to the ground when the Yanks are 46-42, 9.5 games out of first and five out in the Wild Card. But let’s stop think about things for a second here…
What if someone had come up to you on Opening Day and said the following: “By July 4th, A-rod will have missed 16-games with a quad injury, The Captain will have spent the same amount of time on the DL, also thanks to a balky quad, Godzilla will land on the DL for God knows how long, and Jorgie will have been lost for nearly 2-months because of a bad shoulder. Oh right, and Phil Hughes will go down in April and won’t be back till late August, and Wang will come up lame running the bases in interleague and be lost until at least September. Not to mention Ian Kennedy will suck beyond belief, and after recovering from an injury of his own, he’ll be demoted to Single-A. So where are the Yanks after the holiday-weekend series with the Sox?” If you said “46-42 and within striking distance of the Wild Card,” then you’d clearly be a moron, liar, insane, or all of the above.
Now I’m not saying we’re absolutely going to make the playoffs. Heck, I’m not saying we’ll even be there at the end to battle for a postseason spot. But, I am saying that this thing is FAR from being over. Despite all that’s happened, we’re still 2-games ahead of last year’s Wild Card-winning pace and you know we’ll make a deal to bring in a pitcher who, at the very least, isn’t named Darrell Rasner, and maybe we’ll add a right-handed bat to help overcome all of Jeter’s inning-ending double plays. Basically, what I’m trying to say is this: what happens when it’s September 1st and the young, inexperienced Rays find themselves 2 games up on the Sox and 4 games up on the Yanks? What happens when they go from probably making the playoffs to they better make the playoffs? It’s a whole different ball game when you’re trying to squeeze your foot into the slipper to finish of that Cinderella story.
So yeah, all of that to say “We ain’t dead… yet.”
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