Yankees Star's Cocky Quote Gives Blue Jays Even More Fuel to Prove Him Wrong

Jazz Chisholm Jr. is a very good baseball player that's enjoying the most productive season of his big league career. The New York Yankees infielder has set career highs with 29 home runs, 75 RBI and 56 walks - worth more than four wins above replacement. He's also a home run shy of his first 30-30 season, thanks to his 30 stolen bases.

He's also got a rather unimpressive 13 doubles, a .242 batting average, and has committed 15 errors - including nine at second base, which is one shy of the league lead.

He's very good. Great, even. But probably not the best in the league. Kind of like the team he plays on. With roughly two weeks to go in the regular season, it's fair to say that the Yankees are not, by consensus, the team to beat. That is - unless you ask Jazz Chisholm Jr.

"We're the best team in the league," Chisholm told reporters after Saturday's win against the Red Sox. "I feel like any team that thinks they're better than us... when we step on the field...we're coming with relentlessness and we're coming to step on necks. We're not here to play around, we're gonna do the job and get the job done."

We've been playing to everybody else's level instead of our own level" he added. "We've been letting games go, we've been losing games ourselves - making errors, having poor at bats and stuff like that. At the end of the day, we finally looked ourselves in the mirror and decided we're the team to beat.

And what better time to do so than in the midst of a stretch run??

Of course, immediately following that eloquent declaration, the Yankees dropped the final game of their series in Boston, got crushed by the Twins on Monday, and nearly let a 10-1 lead slip away the following night.

They also sit five games behind a Toronto Blue Jays team that could not have picked a better time to catch fire. They've won six games in a row, including four more come-back victories - adding to their franchise-best 47. The head to head match-up also belongs to the Jays this season, thanks to an 8-5 clip that was accented by that emphatic four-game sweep at Rogers Centre back in early July.

At this point, it would take a very unlikely collapse on the part of the Blue Jays for the Bronx Bombers to catch them atop the AL East. However, once the post-season begins, the stats go out the window. And with these teams very likely to square off (potentially as early as the ALDS), it will be interesting to see if Chisholm and his pinstriped pals can walk (or field a routine grounder) as well as they can talk.