Hurricane Henri may have shortened the Yankees series against the Minnesota Twins, having postponed Sunday’s finale, but it appears as though it’s going to take a lot more to slow down the surging Bronx Bombers.
A 7-1 victory on Saturday was the Yankees’ ninth straight while improving to 30-11 over their last 41 games — an MLB best during that stretch — while moving up to a season-high 20 games over .500.
Now, these were the Yankees that everyone was expecting to see.
“It’s a lot of fun,” first baseman Luke Voit said. “This lineup is clicking, and the boys are rolling.”
Clicking? More like firing on all cylinders.
Over their nine-game win streak, the Yankees are averaging 5.6 runs per game. In 19 games since Aug. 3, that number swells to 5.8 runs per game.
“We’re just having great at-bats, top to bottom,” Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton said. “The biggest factor has been wearing down the opposing pitcher. If we’ve got a lot of guys not chasing and forcing them to come into the zone, try to be more precise, they’re just going to make more mistakes. I think that’s what we’ve been doing.”
A prime showing of that was the fifth inning during Saturday’s victory in which the Yankees sent 10 men to the plate during a five-run frame, sending New York well out of sight from a Twins team they’ve so often dominated.
Prior to Sunday night’s action around Major League Baseball, the Yankees trailed the Tampa Bay Rays by just four games for the top spot in the American League East while they catapulted to the No. 1 AL Wild Card spot over the last week — a sweep of the Boston Red Sox headlining their ascension toward a two-game lead over the now-second-place Oakland Athletics.
For the Yankees to improve their perch in the playoff picture, the offense will have to continue to keep “clicking.”
“Hopefully that’s what we can start to do more and more — the weight of the lineup, the quality of the at-bats up and down,” manager Aaron Boone said. “You’re not always going to break through the first time or the second time in a given game. But the more we can have those quality at-bats time and time again, you give yourself a chance to break through and have a big inning.”
