Imagine the important potential moments left in this Yankees regular season.
When, and if, Luis Severino and Zack Britton (remember him?) pitch will be vital for just how they look and what they might bring come the postseason.
The pair of two-game Subway Series are always theater, all the more so if Jacob deGrom can ever get healthy and perhaps line up in one of those series with Max Scherzer to face the Yankees.
Should Aaron Judge approach 60 or 61 homers, that would add daily drama in the waning days of the season, as would the Yankees nearing their team-record 114 wins or the MLB-record 116 wins of the 2001 Mariners.
But without at least the beginning of a historic collapse, in which they blow their 13-game AL East lead in the final 70 games, the Yankees are going to have a lot of days deprived of significance. And it is going to be difficult to blow that lead for the most obvious reasons — these Yankees are really good, the lead is huge and there is now just 43 percent of the schedule left for the competition to catch them.
It’s not impossible. But it’s improbable, especially when you factor in the capability of the division. All five AL East teams begin the second half with at least .500 records and schedules loaded with games against each other. It is going to be difficult to assemble the kind of record necessary to catch the Yankees. For example, via Tankathon, the three most difficult remaining schedules for AL teams belong to the Red Sox (.530 opponent winning percentage), the Rays (.524) and the Orioles (.520). The Blue Jays’ remaining opponents are a combined .515; the Yankees’ foes are at .510.
And the Yankees will get the best of those opponents on Day 1 of the second half. Twice. That is why it can be argued Thursday will be the most important day left on the Yankee regular-season calendar.
That’s when they will play a doubleheader at Minute Maid Park against — sorry, Red Sox — their most hated current rival, the Astros. And it is not hard to unearth meaning.
As opposed to the lack of stress in the AL East, the Yankees lead the Astros by 4 ¹/₂ games for the best record in the American League. The best record will get home-field advantage if both wind up in the ALCS. In 2017 and 2019, the Astros had home-field advantage and ended the Yankees’ season at Minute Maid. This year, the Yankees need to do as much damage as possible because the AL West is not deep and Houston’s remaining schedule has a .474 winning percentage — seventh easiest the rest of the way.
But it goes beyond that for the season series.
The Astros have won three of five so far — enough, for example, to win a five-game AL Division Series. And the dominant force in those games was Houston’s starting pitching. In the two games the Yankees have won, they did not lead until Judge walk-off hits against the Houston bullpen.
The Astros’ rotation has held the Yankees to a .093 average and .393 OPS in the five games — and Lance McCullers Jr., yet to pitch this year, is just beginning a rehab assignment that could further deepen Houston’s starting group.
Matt Carpenter did not start any of the five games for the Yankees. Manager Aaron Boone should change that in both games Thursday. Houston’s rotation (aside from Framber Valdez) and bullpen are heavily right-handed. The Yankees need to see if Carpenter’s revitalization wll continue and what it looks like against the Astros. That will provide yet more information regarding whether the Yankees need to find another hitter before the Aug. 2 trade deadline, preferably lefty (Juan Soto?) to better contend with any opponent, notably Houston.
It is a small sample, but it is all the Yankees have right now. So if they are concerned about the starting matchups after another 24 hours in Astro world, will that be an impetus to push more for a starter, with Cincinnati All-Star Luis Castillo currently the best available in the market.
Namely, the Yankees have another day on the calendar — the last this regular season — to work against the notion that the Astros have residence in their psyche. The Astros clearly don’t flinch when it comes to facing the Yankees. Houston’s sign-stealing malfeasance is on par with the sale of Babe Ruth to the rivalry with the Yankees, the genesis of heightened competition and hostility. And like that Yankees-Red Sox rivalry until 2004, this one has been one-sided — big edge, Astros.
There are not many days left in the regular season and they have that big division lead, so Thursday will provide the Yankees their last pre-October chance to judge their skill and will against their most despised foe. That makes it a pretty important day.