Yankees .444 vs. Good teams
By lefty
During some spare time this past All-Star break, I took a few minutes and tallied up the Yankees performance against teams with a .500 winning percentage. I found that the Yankees played .532 ball against good teams during the first half of the season. Not bad, but also not the kind of numbers that send shivers down the opposing teams' backs. Well, Monday’s off day provided a little more spare time, so I went at it again, and it was a lot more fun this time.
Since the All-Star break, the Yankees have a winning percentage of .445 against teams with winning percentage of .500 or above. Of the 44 games they’ve played the second half of the season, only 18 have been against teams with a winning record. Of those 18, the $185,000 million team has won 8 and lost 10.
But take heart Yankee fans, the Yankees have an easy schedule the rest of the year. In their final 32 games, only 12 will be against a team with a winning record. And that’s counting three games against Cleveland who weighs in at .500 exactly. Six of the 12 games will be against Boston. Three at Fenway, and the other three are part of their 20 remaining games played at the “House That George Broke.”
The Red Sox have 33 games left, of which 15 are against teams with a .500 winning percentage or better. And none of those teams is Cleveland. 16 of their final 33 games are at home. So it looks like Boston will have an uphill battle to catch the Yankees for the division title.
According to my shaky math, this is the way other teams play against .500 teams.
Oakland .643
Anaheim .591
Minnesota .538
Boston .500
Click here for the All-Star break blog.
