Seven of eight. Four straight. The Yanks are on some kind of skid right now. They have, thankfully, built up a nice enough record that their playoff spot is not in jeopardy at the moment. If they continue to play like this the situation could change, but the odds of that aren’t very high. Good teams slump, but it’s rare to see them go into complete collapse. Those are anomalistic situations.
This current skid immediately brings to mind a stretch of games from last year. The Yankees made us forget about the first half of the season by going on a magnificent run after the All-Star break. Remember, though, that the Yanks were five games back of first place in mid-June. Things were not going well. They were losing to teams that they should have beaten, and even when they won it was less than inspiring.
It started, of course, in Boston. The Yankees dropped three straight to the Red Sox before coming home for a round of interleague games agains the Mets and Nationals. While the Yanks went 3-3 in those, if not for a Luis Castillo dropped pop-up it would have been a 2-4. Then they headed down to Florida and dropped two of three to the Marlins before dropping the opening game of the Atlanta series. That left the Yankees 4-9 in a 13-game stretch, when they just as easily could have been 3-10. There is a good chance we could see the Yankees with a 3-10 or a 4- record in the 13-game stretch that follows their eight-game winning streak.
As happens with most good teams, the Yankees recovered from that skid. They rattled off seven straight wins and went 13-2 in their next 15 games. Losing three straight to Anaheim before the break stung a bit, but even with those they were 13-5 following their slide. It’s easy to forget moments like this in the throes of a losing streak. But they happen to every team, every season. The Yankees will come out of this. It might not happen tonight, but it will happen.
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