Yankees take care of business today but another season starts tomorrow

The Yankees efficiently took care of business this weekend taking the final two games of a three-game set against a team they were supposed to beat. Now, it’s on to Baltimore and Toronto.

The Yankees rebounded from a heartbreaking loss on Friday night when the bats went cold while Masahiro Tanaka was hot by capturing the remaining two games at Yankee Stadium.

Michael Pineda (6-2 3.32) provided his team with another quality start pitching six effective innings while surrendering only three runs. The overworked, but still reliable, bullpen again stepped up, with Adam Warren the closer of choice today for Joe Girardi earning a four-out save.

The Bombers offense exploded for nine runs – All Rise Please – with Aaron Judge smashing his 16th home run of the season, this one a grand slam that put the game out of reach for the Oakland A’s.

This is precisely the way the Yankees, who are now eleven games over .500 at 29-18 for the season needed to end their homestand. Because from here on in, the competition rises to a new level.

It’s quite a ways until September when scoreboard watching becomes a necessity at the ballpark. But the Yankees and their fans have to have noted that the Red Sox,  Orioles, and Blue Jays all lost today, meaning the Bombers gain ground all around.

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Get this. Here’s the Yankees schedule between now and June 11. Beginning tomorrow night at Camden Yards, the Bombers face, in succession, the Orioles, the Blue Jays, the Red Sox, and then the Orioles again. Ain’t that sweet?

Conceivably, the Yankees could put this thing away like the Nationals have in the NL East in the next couple of weeks – or not.

As we talked about yesterday, all three of these teams are looking up at the Yankees. And unlike last season, it’s not the other way around.

Meaning that the team only needs to do what they’ve been doing while these other teams need to go on a tear to catch up. The Red Sox had a recent spurt to get them where they are now in second place.

The Blue Jays followed with one of their own until they met another red hot team, the Texas Rangers. And meanwhile, the Orioles have been battling to get out of their own way to the point where even the guru, Buck Showalter, can’t revive them.

Nevertheless, the next two weeks have to be the kind of challenge that the team has been looking forward to. Because there are still questions out there about this team. Are they real or merely as flimsy as the facade that surrounds their home ballpark?

The Yankees Twenty-Five Most Memorable Home Runs

In the Yankees storied history, twenty-five of their home runs stand out as moments in time never to be forgotten and always treasured by baseball fans.

They are where they are as one of the best teams in baseball. But do they have the talent and the tenacity to stay there?

It can’t get more fun this. What a baseball season this is.