WELL, if you’re looking for silver linings about the second half of the Yankees’ season, maybe you can start with this: They only have 10 games left with the Red Sox. And they only have three games left in Anaheim.
Across the season’s first 88 games, after all, the Yankees are 51-26 in every other portion of the schedule. They have bludgeoned the Blue Jays and mauled the Mariners and taken care of Tampa Bay. They have injured the Indians and ransacked the Royals and roughed up the Rangers.
But they are 0-8 against the Red Sox.
They are 0-3 at Angel Stadium.
And that wouldn’t be so terrible if not for the fact that it is awfully easy to envision a scenario where the road back to the Canyon of Heroes goes directly through the following path: A best-of-five AL Division Series against the Angels (with the Angels having the extra home game) followed by a best-of-seven AL Championship Series against the Red Sox.
So, at some point it would be beneficial for the Yankees to prove they are not as bad as they’ve looked so far in every game against the Red Sox and in every game against the Angels in the Pacific time zone. Because they are going to see both of them again plenty: Thirteen times between now and October — and as many as 12 more in October.
“We aren’t intimidated by the Red Sox,” manager Joe Girardi insisted the last time the Yankees were intimidated by the Red Sox, last month in a three-game sweep at Fenway Park that made it eight for the Sox and zippo for the Yankees.
“This has been a hard place for us to play over the years; I wish I could tell you why,” Derek Jeter said earlier during a three-game whitewash handed to them by the Angels, who look like a combination of the 1927 Yankees and the 1996 Bulls and the 1972 Dolphins whenever they open the doors and allow the Yankees in their house.
These are the games that make it impossible to assess what the Yankees have done so far this season, and even more difficult to understand what they may yet be capable of from this point forward. Against just about everyone else, the Yankees have looked equal parts invulnerable and unbeatable.
They are 7-0 against the Twins, a genuine contender in the AL Central, and are in fact 16-5 against that welterweight division (though they haven’t played the White Sox yet). They are 15-9 against the non-Boston faction of the East, and they were 9-6 in interleague play. They are 26-16 at home, and they recently won eight in a row on the road.
All over the field, you have Yankees who have either lived up to expectations (CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira, A.J. Burnett, Mariano Rivera, Robinson Cano) or exceeded them (Derek Jeter, Brett Gardner, Melky Cabrera, Jorge Posada, Johnny Damon, even Nick Swisher). Every so often a lament surfaces: The sad decline of Chien-Ming Wang, the puzzling inconsistency of Joba Chamberlain, the uncertain status of Alex Rodriguez’s hip. But the overwhelming sense, at the break, is that the Yankees are in a good place; even the manager has had a far better second year on the job.
And yet . . .
There is 0-8 against the Sox. There were these three games against the Angels, and the way the Yankees have played in Anaheim for the better part of eight years. The Yankees swim in the deep end of the pool, same as the Sox, same as the Angels. These are the teams against whom they are judged, and will be judged. More to the point, they’re teams they are almost certain to play when the weather is cooler and the stakes higher.
You have to figure the Yankees are better than 0-11 against them. You have to figure that will change at some point. But it would be nice to actually see it first.