The Bronx is Booming

By TPerl

[Author's Note: Now that Bones is away, I am free to talk baseball without incurring his wrath]

I admit it. It happened a week or so before the All Star Game. For the first time in almost 15 years, I gave up on the Yankees.

The starters were bad, the bullpen was even worse, and to say the lineup was underachieving would be a huge understatement.

But I kept watching the games, and sometime around July 1st, it seemed that something clicked, and they started winning. Guys like Cano, Abreu, and Cabrera started hitting, and then Shelley Duncan provided another lift, and Vizcaino continued his emergence as the eighth inning guy. And maybe it's all the attention that the '77 team is getting these days. Or maybe it was just Torre's calming influence infusing the club with the confidence they needed to play to their abilities and make a run.

Whatever is was, I now have to admit that I've done a total 180 and now expect the Yanks to make the playoffs, and at least make it interesting in the division. So go ahead and call me out for it, but I'm sure I wasn't alone among the diehards 5 weeks ago.

And with Phil Hughes coming back and last night's promising debut of Joba Chamberlain, the future looks bright indeed.

Let's take a look to see how far the team has come since July 1st:

In the Wildcard race:




And the division:




If you're counting that's a 24-9 run. And I know that it's almost impossible to keep up that pace, but it's setting the table for this team to play well down the stretch due to their increased confidence.

So let's hope I'm not talking about a complete 360 come September...