Second half letdown?

By Austin Amoroso

We reach the midsummer classic with the New York Yankees still looking up at .500, something Yankee vets Joe Torre, Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada have never seen. Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera were rookies when it last happened in 1995.

In that strike-shortened year, the Yankees’ record stood at 30-36 at the break, a few games worse than the 42-43 record they’ll take to Tampa Bay when the season resumes for them on Thursday.

Buck Showalter’s team lost the last game of the first half that year and stood eight games back of Boston in the division and 7.5 back in the Wild Card. The Yanks eeked into the playoffs to face the Seattle Mariners and we all know how the season ended... with Ken Griffey Jr. sliding feet-first into home, scoring the series-winning run in game five of the ALDS and jumping up with both arms raised above his head in triumph.

That might be the lasting image of the 1995 season for the Yankees, but what’s forgotten is that they were still 7.5 games out in the Wild Card on Sept. 5. And went 19-4 to end the season, finishing a game ahead of both Seattle and the California Angels, who had to to play a one-game playoff to determine the AL Western division champ.

Nineteen and four isn’t something you can rely on, but right now the Yankees have 77 games to work with, not 23. And the second half schedule is considerably easier than the first half. To this point, 32 of the Yankees’ 85 games have been against teams under .500, and 53 against teams .500 or better. It flips in the second half when 54 of 77 games are versus sub-.500 competition.

If this team has any hope of making the playoffs, let alone winning the division, that’s where it’s going to have to make its mark. No matter the sport, that’s how a team succeeds, by beating up on the bad teams and playing .500 against the good teams.

In the first half the Yankees were 26-27 against the better competition. Adequate. But against sub-.500 teams they were just 16-16. In a normal baseball season, with all things even, a team can win half its games against the good teams and two-thirds of its games against the bad teams to get to 95 wins, and all but assuring itself of a spot in the playoffs.

Recent history shows that 94 wins will get a team into the playoffs. Only once in the Wild Card era has a team with 94 wins not made the playoffs, the 1999 Cincinnatti Reds. That year five NL teams won more than 90 games and only six of 16 finished above .500. There was a considerable gap between the good and the bad teams.

That leaves the Yankees needing to go 52-25 in the second half, or, winning at a cool .675 clip. Can it be done? Sure. Will it be done? Maybe. How is it going to be done? By dominating in the 54 games against bad teams in the second half like Yankees fans are used to seeing from the Bronx Bombers.

Maybe that’s what they need, a few more bombs, a little more oomph out of their lineup. They started on Sunday, slamming three homeruns in a 12-0 rout of the Angels.

They have to continue the trend in the second half when their first eight series consist of Tampa Bay, Toronto, Kansas City, Baltimore and Chicago, all teams with records below .500. The Yankees need to be back in the thick of it after that stretch when they conveniently travel to Cleveland for a three-game set against the Wild Card leader.

After that the schedule gets considerably tougher with games against Detroit, Boston, Los Angeles and Seattle. That will be about survival. Win one, lose one. Until the bad teams are back.

A 19-4 close to the season is unlikely, but with games against Baltimore, Tampa Bay, Toronto and Kansas City (oh, and a three-game series in Boston in mid-September) to finish, anything is possible.

After the Bombers’ win on Sunday, Alex Rodriguez said, “We’re playing with a lot of heart right now.”

Yes, they need heart. But they also need to play the way they know they can, and win games they’re supposed to win. Their first test will be in Tampa Bay on Thursday.