Can Joba rule in the pen? Photo by Al Bello - Getty	will Big Papi regain his form?  Photo by Jim Rogash - Getty

Although I’m a Mets fan through and through, and would love to wax poetic today about Jerry Manuel’s relief-pitcher shuffling, or Jose Reyes’s diving stop on that hard line drive today to end the game, or even Beltran’s newly regained power at the plate, let me today turn my thoughts to those other locals, those Yankees, who, after all, have been written off by even their most loyal followers.  But there is still hope.

Playing 2-4 baseball at home in their last six, losing all kinds of different ways over that stretch, and facing ten games in four different and distant cities in the next ten days, one might think the Yankees were done.  I'm sure we've all heard it these last few days, "Stick a fork in 'em, they're done".  Well, I'm here to tell you, it ain't necessarily so.

The Yanks are now 72-64; the Red Sox are at 79-57. Over in Minnesota, the Twins are 77-60, just 1/2 game behind the White Sox in the Central.  So the American League wildcard will be decided among these four teams.  I'm conceding the AL East to the astounding Tampa Bay Rays, who nobody  thought would do anything different this year, except my little brother, of course, who will remind me of this at the drop of a hat.

If the Yanks can take the Tigers tomorrow in a makeup game in Detroit, then fly to Tampa and take two of three, then fly to Seattle and sweep, and then fly to LA, drive over to Anaheim and take 2 of 3 from their old nemeses Angels, they'll be at 80-66 in ten days.  

The Red Sox seemingly have an easier time over the same ten days, traveling to only one city over this same time period to face the Texas Rangers.  Sandwiching that series will be six at Fenway - three against the lowly Orioles but then three versus those Tampa Bay rascals.  Even if the Red Sox take both series against the Orioles and Rangers, if they lose 2 of 3 to the Rays, they’ll be 84-61 in ten days.  The Yanks at 80-66 would then be just 4 ½ games out for the wildcard with 13 games still to play before playing the Red Sox at Fenway for the last three.

The Red Sox will then play 14, featuring Toronto for half those games.  Toronto has the best starting pitching in the league, in both leagues maybe. The other seven are versus those pesky Rays again, and the Cleveland Indians, who have seemingly risen from the dead. If the Red Sox were to falter just a little, going just 6-8 over that stretch, they’ll be at 90-69.

The Yanks would have just 13 games versus the Rays, White Sox, Orioles and Blue Jays.  If the Yanks can go 10-3 over that stretch, they’ll be at 90-69 too.  And they’d still have to take 2 out of 3 at Boston to take the wildcard.  But it’s certainly still do-able. The wildcard winner Yanks would then be 92-70.

I won't bore you with the details of the schedules for the Twins and White Sox over the same time period but, after only a cursory inspection, it looks pretty easy for them  But my point is that this game is baseball, and just go ask the Colorado Rockies what can happen in this strangest of national pastimes.  Or the Mets for that matter.

The Twins and White Sox are, after all, just, well, the Twins and White Sox.  It’s entirely possible for them to falter too.  In fact, for the Twins, who have been doing rather well as of late, it’s almost a sure thing. So, for the purposes of this exercise, I’m assuming the Twins will fold and the White Sox will take the Central.  The Twins, now at 77-60, would just have to lose 11 of their remaining 25 to finish at 91-71.

That may be a little too complicated for most people not totally obsessed by numbers and the vagaries of baseball.  Let me simplify it for those folks.  Remember me saying the Twins are the Twins?  Well, the Yanks are the Yanks.  But they have not really been the Yanks for most of this year. And they soon will be.

You can see that Hideki Matsui has rejoined the team after his knee problems.  And, while he hasn’t been hitting for average yet, he’s already been knocking in some runs and you can see his affect on the team.

And Joba Chamberlain will be coming back too.  But not as a starter, where he did not seem as formidable over five to seven innings as he did for just one.  I must say that seeing Joba almost every day for just one inning beats seeing him for six or seven innings every five days.  Just think of it, five amazing Joba sightings every single week.  WOOHOO!

Arod showed some life yesterday and Giambi continued his little hot streak too.  With Matsui back, the boys are all in line, so to speak, with the whole team back except for Posada.  And the pitching hasn’t been that bad.  Incredible as it may have seemed, Pavano was great in his two appearances, Ponson could have been a lot worse and Rasner is credible too.  Mussina has been great.  Pettite hasn’t been but there’s no reason he can’t come back to form either.

If the Red Sox were not showing signs of weakness, it would be a lot more difficult to predict a close finish.  But really, they’re getting very little from Big Papi and they let Manny go.  How long can they really expect Pedroia to go 10 for 10?  How long before Youkilis reverts to the late-season Youkilis of old?

Beckett’s a little banged up too.  The Red Sox are really not the Red Sox who won the World Series.  And the Yankees could soon be the team that made the playoffs those thirteen years in a row.