By Eddie Castro
As we approach the last month of Major League Baseball’s regular season, the New York Yankees are scratching and crawling every game in hopes of surpassing the division-leading Tampa Bay Rays, who currently have a 4 ½ game lead on the Yankees in the American League East.

Despite not having MVP Aaron Judge since early June, the team has managed to stay afloat; however, teams like the Boston Red Sox have gotten hot during that time and are pushing their division rivals to the limit to capture the No. 1 Wild Card spot. As we go to press, the Yankees recently took three out of four games from the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium, winning the overall season series 7-6.

The Yankees now own the tiebreaker with Boston should the two clubs end the season with the same win-loss record. The two teams do not play each other in the month of September

The obvious goal for the Yankees is to keep winning and hope Tampa hits a wall long enough that there is still ground to cover for the team to still win the AL East for the first time since 2024. Winning the Wild Card isn’t so bad, but if you asked Manager Aaron Boone if the division title is still in sight, that’s what the ball club will continue to push for.

The reason why the last regular-season game (August 30th) between the two teams was so important is that it will ultimately decide the postseason implications as far as who will clinch the No. 1 Wild Card. That’s if the standings are what they are today.

The first Wild Card spot guarantees home-field advantage against the team that holds the No. 2 Wild Card in a best-of-three playoff series. The way things are shaping up, we could very well be in yet another collision course matchup between the Yankees and Red Sox, a rematch of last year’s AL Wild Card matchup.

In 2025, the Yankees were able to come back and win the Wild Card series against the Red Sox last year after dropping the first game.

The Yankees know they still have a lot to work to do. The pitching in its entirety deserves their flowers for the job they have done thus far, for if it were not for the consistency of both the starters and bullpen, who knows where this team would be in the AL East, especially having dealt with so many notable injuries during the season.

The upside is that the Yankees are hopeful to have a playoff pitching rotation that should feature potential Cy-Young candidate Cam Schlittler to get the ball in Game 1, followed by Max Fried, who returned from injury on August 29th, and then Gerrit Cole. According to Boone, Judge has begun a program where he is swinging a bat and throwing beyond 100 feet.

The team hopes to get their franchise slugger back sometime in September. As far as the bullpen goes, it may look a lot different than it does today when it comes to the playoffs.

This is probably the one year where the Yankees have so much pitching depth to throw in as far as relief pitchers. Ryan Weathers, Will Warren, Clarke Schmidt, and Luis Gil, all of whom have all started games for the Yankees this year, with the exception of Schmidt, who is making his way back from Tommy John surgery.

The Yankees’ three best relievers are Paul Blackburn, Brent Headrick, and closer David Bednar. To have a variety of pitchers that could possibly hold a lead in the middle innings, building the bridge to get to those three pitchers who normally lock down the seventh, eighth, and ninth innings, is a good problem to have.

The priority now for the Bronx Bombers is to win out the month of September and head into the playoffs not only with Captain Judge back, but to head into the postseason as healthy as possible.

Sports Notes: (Baseball) Juan Soto is back for the Mets! Soto and the Mets began a three-game series on August 31st against the Tampa Bay Rays. Hopefully the Mets can help out their crosstown neighbors in the Yankees by putting away the team the Yankees are currently chasing for the AL division lead. The Yankees began a six-game West Coast trip on August 31st, which involves three games against the Los Angeles Angels and three games against the San Diego Padres.

WNBA Basketball: Brooklynites, it is officially the New York Liberty that have clinched their sixth consecutive postseason appearance! The next regular-season game for the Liberty will be September 18 as the season pauses in preparation for the FIBA World Cup games, which take place from September 4-13 in Berlin, Germany. FOOTBALL: We are a little more than a week away from the start of the 2026-27 NFL season for both the New York Jets and Giants.

Tune in this Thursday, September 3rd, for an All-New episode of the Sports Talk With Eddie podcast presented by Our Time Press. Head to YouTube: Eddiecastro8382 to see the show live and call in at 917-319-5481 to let your voice be heard about New York Sports!