Consider the power of the New York Yankees.
The team scores 45 runs in three wins in two days and manages to pick up a half game in the standings — leaving them a full half game farther back than they were before the weekend started.
That’s a remarkable feat, when you get right down to it — and as good an example as any as to why they team’s chances of catching the Red Sox remain pretty slim.
Yes, the team has shaved some games off the lead, but it has no margin for error. And if the Sox play decent ball the rest of the way — say winning 34 and losing 30 — then the Yankees will have to find a way to play 42-23 ball. That would be well above anything they’ve done so far this season. And that assumes the Sox play well below their .602 pace. If the Sox win 39 of their final 64 — a little better than .600 — the Yanks would have to go 47-18.
You get the picture.
While I do think the Yanks are a better team than they’ve shown so far, they remain an old team with mediocre arms and awful set-up relievers. If it weren’t for the sublime efforts of A-Rod, Jeter and Posada, it is difficult to even conceive of where this team might be in the standings.
I wouldn’t write them off, but I find the arrogant optimism exhibited by some Yankee fans I know to be misplaced and downright obnoxious (optimism is OK, but someone needs to remind them that this is not 1978 and Bucky Dent is not on the roster).
When the season ends, figure on Detroit to knock off Boston and California to torture Cleveland, with the Angels winning the ALCS in seven. (As for the National League, I still think the Mets are the team to beat — Mets over L.A. and Padres over Milwaukee (though don’t write off the Cubs), with the Mets and Padres going the distance.
Heart says Mets over Angels in a battle of first-wave expansion teams, but my head says that the Angels are going to go all the way. There, I said it and it hurts man.
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Hank Kalet 