ST . PETERSBURG, Fla. — Look, cards on the table: We all know Billy Beane may have uttered the most truthful thing ever about the baseball playoffs when he called them a “crapshoot.” The easiest pathway toward ticking off the sport’s celestial gods and denting your own karma is to root too loudly for the match-ups to fall a certain way.
Especially for the first round, a best-of-five, in which the better team can go from heavy favorite to deep in the soup simply by losing one early home game.
That said? That’s a pretty relevant baseball parlor game this time of year. And while the men who actually coach, manage and play for the Yankees would never in a thousand years attach their names to a quote explaining which team they’d rather play … make no mistake, they have their opinions on the subject. As do you. As do I.
So here, in one man’s view, are the ideal scenarios for the Yankees depending on how the season’s final week plays out, since every one of them, as of now, is still in play:
1. Minnesota Twins
The Twins beat the Tigers 4-2 Tuesday night, slicing their magic number to 2 to eliminate the Indians (who also won) from the AL Central Division race and lock up the No. 3 seed in the playoffs. After losing to the Rays 2-1 in 12 innings, the Yankees fell to 1¹/₂ games behind the Astros in the charge for the No. 1 overall seed in the American League playoffs (actually, they’re 2¹/₂ back, with a Houston magic number of 3, since the Astros have a 4-3 edge in the season series). If they finish behind the Astros, they’ll almost certainly get the Twins.
So there are a couple of ways you can look at this.
The Twins are due to beat the Yankees. Actually, the Twins are due to beat anyone in the postseason because they’ve dropped 13 consecutive postseason games dating back to Game 1 of the 2004 ALDS — and 10 of them have come against the Yankees. In the past 18 years, the Yankees are 87-35 against the Twins, and that includes some pretty good Twins teams who all but evaporated at the sight of pinstripes.
Of course, none of that history will help the Yankees, and the Twins can go longball-for-longball with them, and they’re going to wind up with close to 100 wins. Still: Which of these teams worries you the least, if you’re being honest? Thought so.
2. Tampa Bay Rays
If the Yankees can eke ahead of the Astros, then they will draw the survivor of the wild-card game. The Rays stayed a half-game ahead of the Indians (tied in the loss column) thanks to Ji-Man Choi’s walk-off. If they arrive at Yankee Stadium for Game 1 of the ALDS, they will bring no postseason history between them, but the Yankees have now won 13 out of 19 games this year, a swing that represents most of the eight games that separate the teams in the standings.
Though the Rays are the kind of gritty, small-payroll team that would serve as a wonderful contrast to the imperial Yankees, they have yet to prove themselves their equals on the field this year, Tuesday notwithstanding. Across five games, that difference ought to be stark — and even though Tropicana Field promises to be something other than the ghost town it’s been during the Rays’ yawning playoff drive, there are a lot of Yankees fans who live here.
This could feel like five home games for the Yankees. Not a terrible way to start October.
3. Oakland Athletics
As they did with the Twins a year earlier, the Yankees looked like they belonged in a different league than the A’s when they dominated them in the AL wild-card game in 2018. The A’s also swept the Yankees in Oakland (where the Yanks almost never plays well). The Yankees also had to come back and walk the A’s off in two of the three games they won in The Bronx earlier this month.
In many ways, if the choice is between the A’s and the Indians you’re better just to flip a coin and go wherever it lands. The one major difference is the bullpen, and that is what’s kept the A’s from already clinching a spot in the postseason. The A’s have blown 30 saves so far this year, which is one more than any team in baseball and more than such bullpen arsonists as the Mets and Nats.
(Oh, and since we happen to think history matters: the A’s have lost to the Yankees all four times they’ve met in postseason.)
4. Cleveland Indians
Partly this is because we still can’t believe the Tribe didn’t catch Minnesota. Partly this is because Terry Francona will be in the other dugout. Partly this is because Jose Ramirez hit two home runs Tuesday in his return from the injured list. And partly it’s because the Indians have never been scared of the Yankees in October, even if they haven’t always beaten them.
Plus: There are an awful lot of minefields in Cleveland’s lineup, and the Indians have essentially been playing must-have games for the better part of five months. All in all: Steer clear of Ohio if at all possible.