There are five weeks left in the season. It's do or die. I like the Mets and Yankees chances, God Willing, touch wood, lucky rabbit's foot, etc.
The Mets have the advantage because Pedro and Lo Duca are on the way back from injury. Hammel is on the DL for the Phillies and the Braves keep sputtering even though Texeira has hit ten home runs after the trade from Texas. The NL Central is almost laughable. Its parity makes the NFL look unbalanced. The Cardinals are only 3.0 games back and two games below .500. As I wrote a while back, the Padres concern me and I don't know what the deal with the Dbacks are. Webb's scoreless inning streak finally ended. Anyway, October is a whole different season.
As for the Yankees, they are control their destiny but have no margin for error. Two games behind the Mariners for the Wild Card who are coming to town in early September for a three game set. Five games behind the Red Sox for the AL East and have six head to head games.
Steve recently pointed out that the Yankees beat teams with bad records which you are supposed to do. They also have success against good teams like sweeping the Indians at home and winning three out of four against the Tigers last weekend. Granted, losing two out of three to the Angels, especially Monday night was bad. Mussina's loss on Tuesday was his worst since 1995. If Pettitte wasn't scheduled to pitch next Tuesday against the Red Sox, I would sit Mussina possibly for the rest of the season.
I like the Yankees chances, especially against the Mariners have 20 against .500 teams (as do the Yankees) but 10 of those 20 games are against the Angels. If the Angels and Mariners split those ten games, all the Yankees have to do is go 6-4 or better. Furthermore, eight of the Mariners last 11 games are against the Angels and Indians in the last 11 days of the season. Those games will mean lots.
Posted by a cautiously optimistic in NY.