Not Playing Yankees For A While Is Good

May 18, 2013; Bronx, NY, USA; New York Yankees designated hitter Travis Hafner (33) high fives left fielder Vernon Wells (12) after hitting a two-run home run against the Toronto Blue Jays during the eighth inning at Yankee Stadium. Yankees win 7-2. Mandatory Credit: Debby Wong-USA TODAY SportsBefore the season started, if you looked at the Toronto Blue Jays schedule you couldn’t help but notice that they were scheduled to play the New York Yankees 10 times before the end of May.

With the Yankees dealing with so many injuries at the start of the season, many Jays fans felt the Jays could beat up on the Yankees in those games to help themselves in the standings and to bury the Yankees.

It hasn’t exactly worked out that way.

The Blue Jays are 17-26. A big part of their poor record is because they have been getting owned by the Yankees this season.

The Blue Jays are 1-8 against the Yankees so far.

I never knew the Yankees could do such a killer Tampa Bay Rays impression.

That means against the rest of baseball the Blue Jays are 16-18. Not fantastic either but a lot better than their overall 17-26 record. 16-18 looks like a record that you can actually defend a good team for getting off to a bad start. 17-26 just looks like a bad team.

The Yankees were single-handedly burying the Blue Jays in the standings.

Not only were the Yankees burying the Jays in the standings, but they were using the Jays to generate a much more misleading record. The Yankees are 27-16, but if you take away their games against the Blue Jays, they are just 19-15! That resembles a record more like a good team that’s dealing with injuries as opposed to their gaudy 27-16 Blue Jay beating induced record.

Luckily for the Blue Jays, and the rest of the American League East for that matter, the Jays don’t play the Yankees again until August. If trends from the first month and a half of the season mean anything, that should help slow the Yankees down a little bit.

It should also help the Jays get their act together which they were just doing. They had just won 7 out of their last 10 games before losing 2 straight to their 2013 kryptonite.

Playing in the American League East, the Blue Jays schedule is not going to get easy for an extended period of time, ever. The way the Yankees have been playing the Jays this season, not playing the Yankees again until August is the closest thing to an easy schedule the Jays could ask for.