As Yankees Fall, Rays Rise and Red Sox Hold Course in Tantalizing AL East Race
After two months, only one of Major League Baseball's six divisions features four teams above the .500 mark.
It's the American League East, and it's wild.
With 16 wins in their last 17 games, the reigning American League champion Tampa Bay Rays are back atop the division. Breathing down their necks are the Boston Red Sox, who are clearly determined to make up for their last-place finish in 2020.
TOP NEWS
Assessing Every MLB Team's Development System ⚾
.png?w=256)
10 Scorching MLB Takes 🌶️
Yankees Call Up 6'7" Prospect 📈
Yet the big surprise in the AL East is the relative mediocrity of the New York Yankees. They came into the year as a presumed World Series contender and are still in that conversation, but they've been sidetracked by injuries and a wave of losses punctuated by a three-game sweep by the lowly Detroit Tigers over Memorial Day weekend.
Though the Yankees still have four months to turn their fortunes around, the seriousness of their problems and the difficulty of the road ahead don't paint a rosy picture.
AL East Standings
- Tampa Bay Rays, 35-20
- Boston Red Sox, 32-21 (2.0 GB)
- New York Yankees, 29-25 (5.5 GB)
- Toronto Blue Jays, 27-25 (6.5 GB)
- Baltimore Orioles, 17-37 (17.5 GB)
The Yankees Are Banged Up and Lack Bang on Offense
On Opening Day, FanGraphs pegged the Yankees' chances of winning the AL East at a sturdy 71.0 percent. Even as recently as May 12, they were still as high as 67.8 percent.
Now they're at 28.0 percent.
That reflects the size of the bite that the injury bug has taken out of the Yankees. They just welcomed slugger Giancarlo Stanton back from a left quad strain Friday, and now reigning MLB home run leader Luke Voit (right oblique strain), starting pitcher Corey Kluber (right shoulder strain) and center fielder Aaron Hicks (left wrist surgery) are due to miss extended time.
The Yankees staff might be able to weather the loss of Kluber. Mainly courtesy of a Cy Young Award-caliber season by $324 million ace Gerrit Cole, the club ranks first in the AL with a 3.22 ERA. And in the coming weeks, starter Luis Severino (see here) and ace reliever Zack Britton (here) are due back from their Tommy John and elbow surgeries.
However, the Yankees are shockingly deficient in other aspects of the game. Neil Paine of FiveThirtyEight wrote all about the club's issues with defense, baserunning and situational hitting, yet nothing looms as large as its baffling shortage of offensive firepower.
To wit, the Yankees are only in the middle of the pack with 62 home runs and third from the bottom with a .371 slugging percentage. You'd never know they still have many of the same members of a unit that slugged .490 with 306 home runs just two years ago.
The injuries obviously haven't helped. Nor is it helping that DJ LeMahieu and Clint Frazier are having down years after lighting things up in 2020. Then there's the curious case of Gleyber Torres, who's gone from 62 homers in his first two seasons to just five over his last two.
Yet there are also foundational issues.
For instance, the Yankees' ground-ball percentage is up 4.2 points from 2019. They're also striking out 24.9 percent of the time, compared to 23.0 percent in 2019 and 21.7 percent just last year.
The Yankees are part of a leaguewide issue in the latter regard, yet what's unique about their strikeout problem is how it derives from misses on hittable pitches. Whereas their rate of contact outside the strike zone is only down from 61.4 to 60.1 percent since 2019, their contact percentage inside the zone has fallen from 85.0 to 82.0 percent.
Even more so than manager Aaron Boone, such things ought to have Yankees hitting coach Marcus Thames on the hot seat. But even if he were to be relieved of duty, the Yankees would still have holes at first base and center field by way of Voit's and Hicks' injuries. General manager Brian Cashman may need to fill those on the trade market.
Either way, the Yankees are running out of time to be patient.
The Rays Are Just Really Good
You only have to go back to May 12 to find a time when the Rays were a mere .500 team (19-19, to be exact) that was looking up at three clubs in the AL East.
But in the weeks since then, they've looked a lot more like the team that won an AL-high 40 games and pushed the Los Angeles Dodgers to six games in the 2020 World Series.
It's perhaps easiest to notice the Rays' excellence when they're in the field. They lead the American League in defensive runs saved and all of MLB in outs above average. And while the guys with the gloves deserve the lion's share of the credit for that, manager Kevin Cash and the club's analytics department deserve some for opponents' .198 average on ground balls against shifted or strategic infield alignments.
Though Tyler Glasnow has certainly carried the rotation with a 2.57 ERA and 98 strikeouts over 70 innings, it's also to Cash's credit that the pitching staff has withstood the offseason departures of Blake Snell and Charlie Morton as well as it has.
Even after he got roasted for his quick hook of Snell in Game 6 of the Fall Classic, Cash has stuck to his guns and limited his starters to only 4.8 innings per outing. Yet he's had a good feel for when to extend them, as the 178 instances in which they've faced a hitter for a third time in a game have yielded an AL-low .544 OPS.
On days when his starters don't go deep, Cash is liable to make up the difference by having the next guys up go more than one inning at a time. The Rays lead MLB with 62 relief appearances that resulted in more than three outs, and 51 of those also yielded one or zero earned runs.
And don't sleep on the Rays offense.
Sure, it has the second-highest strikeout rate in MLB behind only the Tigers. But it's nonetheless scoring five runs per game, and it's been one of the hottest in baseball since May 13.
That's not because the strikeouts have dissipated. It's more so because Rays hitters have been racking up walks and home runs, and many of the latter spring from a specific quality.
Since May 13, only the Red Sox and Minnesota Twins have done a better job than the Rays of pulling the ball in the sweet spot. So far this season, batted balls that match that description have a 1.396 slugging percentage.
If all this isn't a strong enough indication that the Rays are in the race to stay, consider what's become of their chances of winning the division. Since May 12, they've skyrocketed from 3.5 to 36.1 percent.
The Red Sox Are Holding Course, And the Blue Jays Are Lingering
As the Yankees have fallen and the Rays have risen, it's perhaps been easy to lose sight of the Red Sox. But rest assured, they're still there.
Though it's been a while since the Red Sox's nine-game winning streak in April, they've continued to stay well above water with a 23-18 record over their last 41 games. They've subsisted on superb offense from J.D. Martinez, Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers as well as a Matt Barnes-led bullpen that's better than it gets credit for.
With ace left-hander Chris Sale due back from Tommy John surgery sometime this summer, the Red Sox might not need to seek help on the trade market for a rotation that is paper-thin. As it is, Boston is right there with New York and Tampa Bay with a 23.2 percent chance to win the AL East.
Lest anyone think we're forgetting about them, the Toronto Blue Jays may yet crash the party.
They've been up and down, and they're about to be tested as they leave behind their hitter-friendly digs at TD Ballpark in Dunedin, Florida, for more of a controlled environment at Sahlen Field in Buffalo, New York. The move could squeeze a home run flow that's thus far helped pour out an AL-high 77 long balls.
On the flip side, that venue switch could be a boon to a pitching staff that has the second-best road ERA (3.57) of any AL team. And at some point, $150 million signee George Springer (right quad strain) should get healthy and help Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Marcus Semien carry the lineup.
At 12.7 percent, the Blue Jays' chances of winning the AL East aren't much to look at. But that's also not bad for a club that almost certainly hasn't peaked yet—and which almost certainly will eventually.
Only Baltimore Orioles fans should give up on winning the AL East. For everyone else, it's the best four-horse race in town.
Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference and FanGraphs and accurate through Monday's games.
.png?w=480)
.jpg?w=600 "Colts Release Kenny Moore")
