Two weeks ago the question would have led to a drug test.
Now?
It’s not coming from left field never mind a pound of hydroponics weed.
Are the Yankees ready to run away and hide in the AL East? Is this group that is led by starting pitching ready to turn the clock back to 1998?
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The answer is out there dancing in Sinatra’s summer wind, but since the All-Star break the Yankees are clearly the best team in the American League.
Yesterday’s workmanlike 6-4 victory over the Orioles in front of 47,134 at Yankee Stadium hiked the Yankees’ winning streak to six and pushed them to 20 games over .500 at 57-37 for the first time this season.
“It’s the best we have been, but we need to continue to grind it out,” manager Joe Girardi said.
How many times did you hear Joe Torre talk about his 1998 team grinding out wins? And like this edition, Torre’s squad was led by starting pitching, a solid setup crew and Mariano Rivera.
Then it was David Wells, David Cone, Andy Pettitte and Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez in the rotation. Today, it’s A.J. Burnett, CC Sabathia, Joba Chamberlain and Pettitte.
Phil Hughes, Alfredo Aceves and Phil Coke are playing the part of Jeff Nelson, Ramiro Mendoza and Mike Stanton.
Eleven years later Rivera, who posted his 28th save in 29 chances yesterday, is just as good.
Of course, the 1998 club was 15 ½ games on top on July 22 after whipping the Tigers at Yankee Stadium on its way to 114 regular-season wins. And it won a World Series.
This outfit moved two games ahead of the Red Sox after Boston lost its fifth straight game last night, 3-1 to the Rangers, and there is a lot of green before October.
Still, nobody saw this coming before the All-Star break, when the Yankees dropped three straight to the Angels and spent four days off three games behind their blood rivals.
“We lost three and all of a sudden people were saying we were the worst team in baseball,” said Nick Swisher, who made one terrible play and two good ones in right field and contributed with a two-run single. “We took our frustrations out on the field.”
Swisher’s big hit capped a four-run first in which Alex Rodriguez and Robinson Cano added RBI singles off loser Jason Berken (1-8). That was followed by solo runs in the third and eighth on Jorge Posada’s homer and RBI double. Yet pitching was the reason the Yankees brushed aside the AL East cellar dwellers.
Burnett worked seven innings in which he gave up two runs, six hits, walked three and fanned six. He is 9-4, riding a four-game win streak and hasn’t lost since June 20.
Hughes’ dominance as a reliever continued with a scoreless eighth. And after Brian Bruney gave up back-to-back, two-out homers in the ninth to Adam Jones and Nick Markakis, Rivera surfaced to catch Aubrey Huff looking for the final out.
“We are all feeling good and all locked in,” Burnett said of the Yankees starters.
That’s evident by the numbers across the winning streak. The starters are 4-0 with a 2.27 ERA.
“It started the first game after the break,” said Burnett, who gave up two runs in his final inning. “It’s a friendly competition.”
The skeptics point to the Orioles being awful and the putrid A’s pulling into The Bronx to open a four-game series tonight and question the quality of the current opponents.
And don’t forget the Red Sox are 8-0 against the Yankees.
Still, if you have watched the last six games when contributions have come from all angles, there is a hint of 1998 in the air.