Joel Sherman

Joel Sherman

MLB

This Yankees season still has disaster potential

Athletes embrace the notion of being equated to warriors. But not Warriors.

In 2017, the capital-letter version evoked by both Yankees general manager Brian Cashman and Red Sox head of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski was designed to heap over-dog pressure on the other side.

For no team in sports has endured the championship-or-bust burden the past three years like the NBA’s Golden State Warriors.

The Yankees do not have that mandate this season. So they are not the Warriors.

But they are the Atlanta Hawks, because they have to make the playoffs now. In fact, if they do not, at minimum, host the AL wild-card game, this regular season becomes a failure.

That is about the Yankees raising the bar for their expectation, but also the low bar competing against them for the wild card.

That a playoff berth is even in question speaks to how underwhelming the Yankees have been for two months, including going 5-8 following a trade deadline that was supposed to serve as a catapult.

It is one thing if the Yankees cannot overtake the Red Sox, who 1-to-25 still have superior talent. However, to fail to hold off the lightweights behind them would be unacceptable.

The Angels, who were second in the wild-card standings behind the Yankees heading into Tuesday, were actually sellers (David Hernandez) at the deadline and played without Mike Trout for two months. The next in line for the wild card were the Twins, who not only sold at the deadline, but to the Yankees (Jaime Garcia). The Rangers and Blue Jays also sold.

The Twins have won eight of their last 10 games.Getty Images

The Royals, Orioles, Mariners and Rays bought — but not to the talent or financial level of the Yankees, who turned over 20 percent of their roster.

Yet all of those nine teams were within 5½ games of each other when play began Tuesday.

Last year, the Yankees dealt arguably their three best players in Carlos Beltran, Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller, plus Ivan Nova, and actually played better afterward to stick on the periphery of a playoff race. We might be seeing some of this now with teams chasing the Yankees — fresh blood from the minors and the removal of pressure helping out clubs.

Still, the Yankees had a plus-112 run differential — the second-best in the AL. Among the other eight wild-card contenders, only the Rangers (plus-14) had a positive run differential. The Yankees’ differential remains better than that of the Red Sox and with six games still left against their main rival, winning the AL East remains the priority. As Joe Girardi said, he checks out every score on the out-of-town scoreboard, but “I look at one score in particular.”

That is the right sentiment. Still, finishing second to the Red Sox would be no shame for the 2017 Yankees. Finishing anything but first for the wild card would be.