Sunday, August 10, 2008
Slimmer and Slimmer
Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), real life intruded in my blogging and Yankee watching over the last few days. So I really have nothing to say about the sweep by LA of A, except that I completely expected it and am thus not really that angry about it.A couple of weeks ago, I took a look at the Yankees' upcoming schedule using log5 to give us an idea of what we should reasonably have expected. Here's how the Yankees have done relative to expectations since then.
| Date | Opponent | Exp W | Exp L | Act W | Act L |
| 28-Jul | Orioles | 0.7 | 0.3 | 0.0 | 1.0 |
| 29-Jul | Orioles | 1.3 | 0.7 | 0.0 | 2.0 |
| 30-Jul | Orioles | 2.0 | 1.0 | 0.0 | 3.0 |
| 31-Jul | Angels | 2.5 | 1.5 | 1.0 | 3.0 |
| 1-Aug | Angels | 3.0 | 2.0 | 1.0 | 4.0 |
| 2-Aug | Angels | 3.5 | 2.5 | 1.0 | 5.0 |
| 3-Aug | Angels | 4.0 | 3.0 | 2.0 | 5.0 |
| 4-Aug | @Rangers | 4.6 | 3.4 | 3.0 | 5.0 |
| 5-Aug | @Rangers | 5.1 | 3.9 | 3.0 | 6.0 |
| 6-Aug | @Rangers | 5.6 | 4.4 | 3.0 | 7.0 |
| 7-Aug | @Rangers | 6.2 | 4.8 | 4.0 | 7.0 |
| 8-Aug | @Angels | 6.6 | 5.4 | 5.0 | 7.0 |
| 9-Aug | @Angels | 7.0 | 6.0 | 5.0 | 8.0 |
| 10-Aug | @Angels | 7.5 | 6.5 | 5.0 | 9.0 |
You probably didn't need fancy numbers to tell you the Yankees are playing like crap. They were 2.5 games worse than expected over this 14 game stretch. The Yankees entered play on July 28th 3 games behind first place Tampa Bay in the AL East and 1 game behind Boston for the wild card. Now, they are 8.5 games behind Tampa Bay and 4 games behind Boston for the wild card, and are looking up at Minnesota as well.
As long as the Yankees are mathematically alive I'm not going to write them off, otherwise I may have to deal with Jeter is King reading me the virtual riot act again, but let's face it, it's bleak.
First, let's look at the division. The Rays are 71-46. If they go 22-23 over their remaining 45 games, the Yankees would have to 30-14 just to tie them. There's another problem. Tampa has six games left with Boston. So when those teams are playing the Yankees will not be able to pick up ground on one of the teams ahead of them.
The wild card is still in play, but there are four teams that have better records than the Yankees in Tampa Bay, Boston, the White Sox, and Minnesota. Two of those four will likely win their division, but the other two will be the Yankees' chief competition. The Rangers are 2.5 games behind the Yanks but could also end up in the mix, although their schedule is pretty rough going forward.
The cold hard facts are that statistically, the Yankees' odds of making the postseason at this point are slim, and growing slimmer. It won't be the end of the world if they fail to make the postseason, but it sure will be disappointing.
Page 1 of 1 pages: