tonytalkssports My Take on Sports, particularly the Yankees, Maple Leafs and Browns

Yanks Begin Second Half In Good Position

Despite some key injuries and a heavy reliance on home runs, the New York Yankees lead the AL East with the best record in baseball and absent a total collapse should be headed to the playoffs. Winning the division is very important as the Yanks will not want to be involved in the wild card play-in game.

Before we begin planning the Canyon of Heroes parade route, this team is flawed. While Joe "The Binder" Girardi pooh-poohs the heavy reliance on home runs, the fact remains that homer reliance teams run into trouble in October. As I have mentioned in a previous post, no one is having a career year offensively. In fact, as was pointed out in a New York newspaper article, Alex Rodriguez and Russell Martin need to pick up their game at the plate. ARod is the bigger concern in my mind because of where he hits in the lineup. If he is able to put up solid numbers in the second half, the Yankee offense becomes even more difficult for opposing pitchers.

Tonight's series against the Angels will be a good test. If the Yankees continue to get solid pitching from Ivan Nova, Phil Hughes, Hiroki Kuroda and Freddy Garcia, they should win the division going away. But nothing is a given. Just ask last year's Boston Red Sox.