Yankees Again Prove They Can Beat Up Bums

By Sal Maiorana

September 1, 2025

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Sal Maiorana, a friend of the site, shares his analysis on the New York Yankees on his free Pinstripe People Newsletter at https://salmaiorana.beehiiv.com/subscribe. Be sure to check it out!

An edited version of Sal's most recent article follows...

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The Yankees just missed a perfect 7-0 week because they dropped the finale Sunday to the White Sox. Still, it was a great week beating up on terrible teams and they have jumped right back into the race for the AL East while also strengthening their position at the top of the wildcard race. Lets get to it.

The Yankees did exactly what they needed to do last week. They were playing two of the worst teams in MLB, the Nationals and White Sox, and the only way they were going to give themselves a legitimate chance of getting back into the hunt for the AL East division title was to dominate these two schlub teams. And they did. Boy, did they ever.

They won six of the seven games by a cumulative score of 53-20, and perfection was ruined - as well as their seven-game winning streak - when Tim Hill gave up a tiebreaking eighth-inning homer to Chicago’s Lenyn Sosa Sunday which enabled the putrid White Sox to avoid a four-game sweep.

The seven-game winning streak has gotten the Yankees to 76-61, so they’re almost back to their highest point of the year - 17 games over .500 which is where they were perched at the close of business on June 12 following a three-game sweep in Kansas City.

There has been a whole lot of very bad baseball between then and now when you consider that on Aug. 23 when they lost their third straight in that horrid series against the Red Sox they were eight games below .500 since June 12. Now they’re nearly back to playing .500 since that date (34-36) and thanks to a ho-hum August from the previously scorching hot Blue Jays, the Yankees are within three games of first place with a month to go.

But now we’ve reached another critical inflection point in the schedule. The last time we had one of these was a couple weeks ago after the Yankees manhandled the middling Twins, Cardinals and Rays. Going 7-1 against three non-playoff contenders was nice, but they had to prove their mettle in a huge four-game series against Boston and they failed by losing three of four.

Now, after going 6-1 against the Nationals and White Sox, they are facing a much more difficult schedule segment because they are staring at two weeks worth of games against four teams that will likely be playing October baseball.

It starts Tuesday with three games in Houston against the perennial pains AL West-leading Astros, then shifts to Yankee Stadium for a huge three-game showdown against the Blue Jays followed by three against the AL Central-leading Tigers. At the end, there’s three games at Fenway against a Boston team who they are 2-8 against this year.

“The feeling is good. We’re obviously enjoying it,” Cody Bellinger said of the recent hot streak that has seen the Yankees win 14 of their last 19. “This is definitely better than the other way. But we all understand that there’s more games to play. We can’t focus on other people. We just focus on the guys in this locker room.”

If they win a lot these upcoming 12 games, the Yankees will bolster their position in the wildcard race and they could possibly move back into first place in the division. At the bare minimum, if they can at least tread water and not lose the ground they just made up, they will have a chance to wreak some havoc in the final two weeks when they play three each against the Twins and White Sox, and six against the Orioles, all teams who are playing out the string and can’t get wait for the season to end.

Meanwhile, Toronto closes with seven games against the always pesky Rays and three each against two playoff contenders, the Royals and Red Sox, while Boston finishes with three each against the A’s, Rays, and playoff-bound Blue Jays and Tigers. On paper and in theory, which is all it is because the games still need to be played, the schedule in the last two weeks clearly favors the Yankees, but first things first. If they don’t do some good work in the upcoming two weeks, those last two weeks might not matter in terms of the division.

“It’s coming down to the wire,” Aaron Judge said. “We want to play the best teams, especially getting down the stretch here into the postseason. That’s what it’s all about, to see what we’re made of. We got to show up every single day and prove it. It doesn’t matter what we did the past road trip, doesn’t matter good or bad, we got to show up every single day here and we got something to prove - more to ourselves than anybody else. We got a special team here and guys know the opportunity we got ahead of us. The boys are fired up, we’re ready to go.”