Latest New York Yankees Playoff Predictions, Updated Player Stats, Injuries, Standings

With five weeks remaining in the 2026 Major League Baseball season, the New York Yankees have been playing some of their best baseball as of late, threatening to reclaim first place in the AL East for what would be a critical first-round bye in the postseason.

Ahead, we'll take a look at which Yankees have been hot over the past week, what's on tap for the upcoming week, some injury updates and the current standings before offering up fresh predictions for October.

The Week Behind

You can't ask for much better than five wins in six games against division rivals.

It would've been sweeter if it had come against the Rays and Red Sox, but the Yankees swept the Orioles in Baltimore before taking two out of three at home against the Blue Jays. Dylan Cease flirting yet again with a no-hitter was the only thing that could slow the Yankees down.

During that surge, Spencer Jones had maybe his best week yet in the majors, going 8-for-21 (.381 AVG) with two home runs, two stolen bases and seven runs scored.

The real star, though, was the pitching staff. Cam Schlittler and Gerrit Cole each went six innings of one-run ball—the former lowering his ERA to a still AL-best 2.16—while the bullpen had a cumulative ERA of 1.35. The Yankees have now held their opponent to five runs or fewer in 17 consecutive games, winning 11 of them.

The Week Ahead

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The homestand continues with two series featuring major postseason implications.

First up, the Yankees host the Houston Astros on Tuesday-Thursday, with the sub-500 visitors desperately trying to hang onto first place in the AL West.

Since signing with the Yankees in 2020, Cole has made just three starts against his former employer. But he has destroyed the Astros each time, allowing three runs in 23 innings of work. He has also been hot as of late with a 2.45 ERA since the beginning of July. Look for him to turn in another gem on Wednesday as the Yankees do their best to stifle Yordan Alvarez's bat.

But the much, much bigger series is the four games in three days against the Red Sox.

It's such a key series, in fact, that the Yankees might want to think about giving Schlittler (who should start on Thursday against Houston) an extra day of rest to start on Friday, hoping he can go deep in the series opener to help preserve the bullpen for the combination of Saturday's doubleheader and the early game on Sunday.

An additional motivating factor in that decision could be that Schlittler has owned the Red Sox in his young career. In three starts against them this season, he has a 0.96 ERA—this after his all-time postseason gem (8.0 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 12 K) in the do-or-die Game 3 of the 2025 Wild Card series.

Where the Yankees turn from there, though, remains to be seen. Saturday could be an intriguing "all hands on deck" showdown with their loathed rival.

Injury Updates

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The Good

• Both Carlos Rodón (elbow) and Cody Bellinger (hamstring) returned from the IL this week. The former lasted four innings in each of his starts on Tuesday and Sunday, but was reasonably effective for those four innings, allowing one earned run in each. The latter came back on Sunday after nearly a full month on the shelf and went 1-for-4.

• Max Fried (elbow) threw a 26-pitch bullpen on Saturday and Aaron Judge (rib) progressed to hitting off a tee this week. There's a reasonable chance both will return in early-to-mid September. Clarke Schmidt (Tommy John) also might be able to make it back as a reliever, slated to begin a rehab assignment within the next week.

The Bad

• Ryan McMahon (thumb) landed on the IL on Thursday, but with just one home run and a .630 OPS thus far in the second half, that's not a catastrophic loss. More José Caballero probably isn't a bad thing.

The Ugly

• Ryan Weathers (forearm) was lost to the IL after an early exit from his start on Saturday. And with a stretch of 10 games in nine days beginning on Tuesday, that's a real bummer. They were already probably going to need to call up either Elmer Rodríguez or Luis Gil (who is recovering from a shoulder injury) from Triple-A for a spot start to survive this crunch, but now they might need to lean on both for a pivotal stretch of the schedule.
• Worse yet, Giancarlo Stanton suffered a setback in his quest to return from the IL, injuring his left calf while running the bases in his rehab from a right calf strain. Whether he'll be able to return in 2026 is now questionable at best.

Current Standings

AL East

• Tampa Bay Rays: 77-53
• New York Yankees: 74-56, 3 GB
• Boston Red Sox: 71-59, 6 GB
• Toronto Blue Jays: 64-68, 14 GB
• Baltimore Orioles: 63-68, 14.5 GB

AL Wild Card

• New York Yankees: 74-56, +9.5 GB
• Boston Red Sox: 71-59, +6.5 GB
• Texas Rangers: 65-66
• Cleveland Guardians: 65-66
• Toronto Blue Jays: 64-68, 1.5 GB
• Minnesota Twins: 63-67, 1.5 GB
• Baltimore Orioles: 63-68, 2 GB
• Seattle Mariners: 62-68, 2.5 GB
• Detroit Tigers: 61-69, 3.5 GB

Seeding/Postseason Predictions

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Barring what would be maybe the most catastrophic late-season collapse in MLB history, the Yankees are going to make the postseason. At any rate, PECOTA, FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference each put New York's playoff odds at 99.9 percent, and good luck finding a sportsbook that even offers a line on the Yankees making/missing the postseason at this point, 18 games above .500 in a league that only has four teams with a winning record.

Whether they'll land the No. 1, No. 4 or No. 5 seed, though, is the great unknown.

New York is three games behind Tampa Bay for first place in the AL East, as well as three games ahead of Boston for the top wild card spot. It has four games remaining against each of those division rivals, but also has the easiest remaining schedule of the trio, including three home games against the Rockies, three home games against the Mets and a three-game set on the road against the Angels.

The opportunity is absolutely there for the Yankees to take over the top spot, though the likeliest scenario at this point remains securing the No. 4 seed and hosting the Red Sox in the wild card round for a second consecutive year.

That could be bad news, though, as Boston has been a blistering inferno for a while now, boasting a .750 winning percentage over its last 52 games—a two-month stretch that began with a four-game sweep of the Yankees at Fenway Park.

If that series began today—with no Aaron Judge, no Max Fried and Boston seemingly unable to be stopped—we'd have to forecast the Red Sox to win, regardless of New York's home-field advantage.

However, that feeling could change in a big way after this weekend's showdown with Boston. And if the Yankees survive that initial best-of-three series, there's a good chance they'd take down Tampa Bay in the ALDS before also beating whoever is left standing in the ALCS to reach the World Series.