It feels as if it has been one step forward, 10 steps back. It doesn’t take a genius to know that the Yankees have been streaky this year. They’re good, then they suck. They score, then they can’t buy a hit. It has been that way all year. You’ll see a lot of fans giving up on the team’s postseason chances only to note they’re only a couple back in the loss column from a playoff spot a couple of weeks later. The Yankees certainly have played with all of our emotions.
Here’s a quick recap of how they’ve been month-to-month:
| Month | Record | Full season wins pace |
|
April |
12-14 |
75 |
|
May |
17-11 |
98 |
|
June |
12-14 |
75 |
|
July |
14-9 |
99 |
| August | 2-1 |
108 |
Some months, they’ve been nearly a 100-win type of team. Others, they’re not even a .500 team.
Here are their game results from Baseball Reference:
You see a few green bars promptly followed by a few red ones, and so on. No consistency.
The Yankees’ longest winning streak this season has been six games (May 18 to May 23 against the Rangers and White Sox). That was their high-water mark at nine games over .500. They followed this by losing six of their next seven games. Their longest losing streak has been five games (April 13 to April 18 against the Blue Jays and Rays). That was their low-water mark at five games under .500. They then won four of five.
They’ve had one day where they ended the day in first place in the AL East: April 6 when they were 3-2 (they were tied for first). They’ve been as far back as 10 games in the division (July 4) and have since brought it down to six games (five in the loss column).
They are eight games over .500 before play on Aug. 4, so they have a chance to match their season-high. They are 11-6 since the All-Star break, which puts them at a 105-win pace over a full season. Hopefully, the acquisitions of Joey Gallo and Anthony Rizzo help keep them more consistently in the win column, even with three of our starters recently going down with injuries or COVID complications.
It’s been a wild and not necessarily fun ride this year with the Yankees. They can’t continue to oscillate and have a playoff birth be an asymptote of some kind that we will never surpass.
