Blue Jays: How things look for the other Wild Card contenders

New York Yankees

There was a time in July when it looked like the Yankees were completely imploding, but they managed to hang around long enough to keep themselves a hot streak away from being back in the picture.

That’s exactly where they are now, as they’ve won eight of their last eleven, and have been keeping pace with the Jays during their hot streak. That said, they’ve got a very tough schedule for the rest of the month, and they’re going through a lot of injury issues at the moment.

As for the schedule, I’m sure manager Aaron Boone is losing sleep thinking about the rest of this month. They start a three-game set against the White Sox tomorrow, they have three with the Red Sox, four against the A’s, and two with the surging Braves. They have a few other less intimidating opponents like the Twins and Angels, but it’s going to be a difficult month for them to keep up.

To make matters worse, their injury issues seem to get worse by the day. Not every situation is a long-term problem, but they’re missing some key pieces to their success including Gerrit Cole, Aroldis Chapman, Anthony Rizzo, Gleyber Torres, Gary Sanchez, Gio Urshela and several more, and that’s on top of others like Corey Kluber and Luis Severino. The front office was aggressive in acquiring Rizzo and Joey Gallo to give their lineup some left-handed punch, and in theory if the roster can get healthy they’re an extremely dangerous group.

If they can keep their heads above water for the rest of August, one of the keys to the Yankees season could be their head to head match-ups with the Blue Jays. The two clubs will play six key games against each other in September. As a Blue Jays fan, I’d love nothing more than to see them directly responsible for helping send the Yankees home early this season. We’ll see where things stand come September,