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In professional sports, including MLB, good teams feast on mediocre competition and play well and compete against the rest of the league.
The New York Yankees have certainly been doing the former.
The latter?
Not so much.
The Yanks have finished with a positive record in each season from 1993 to 2022.
After dropping the opener of the Subway Series against the New York Mets on Tuesday, they are 53-48, just five games above .500.
If if weren’t for the Kansas City Royals and the Oakland Athletics, however, the Yankees would be below .500, according to NJ Advance Media’s Max Goodman.
The #Yankees are 8-1 against the Royals and A’s this year.
They’re 45-47 against everyone else.
— Max Goodman (@MaxTGoodman) July 26, 2023
You don’t need to be a baseball expert to know at this point that the Athletics and the Royals are the two worst teams in the American League and probably MLB, too.
They have surrendered eight of the nine combined games they have played against New York.
However, the Yanks haven’t been as dominant against the rest of the league.
It’s a very revealing number and it should tell you all you need to know about the 2023 Yanks: they are just not good enough to make a serious run at the postseason without Aaron Judge and some reinforcements.
Their pitching staff is solid, but the offense is mediocre at best and one of the weakest in the league without Judge.
Fortunately for them, they have an opportunity ahead: the trade deadline.
In addition to that, Judge could potentially return before the end of the week.
If they make the right trades, maybe they will be good enough to beat teams other than the Royals and A’s.
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