Let's Game It Out...

...as they said in the Pentagon before invading Iraq.

IS finishing second in the AL East this year really going to be the out-and-out disaster we're told it will be?

Let's take the worst-cas scenario (for Yankees fans). Our heartthrobs come in second, behind a Boston team that has the best record in baseball.

Bummer!  Damn, guess we should have traded the farm for Cole Hamels after all!

So, we go off to the Bud Selig Revenue-Shot One-Game Play-In, and are forced to pitch Sevvy against...probably Seattle, one of the very few teams not deliberately tanking in the AL this year. We win (hooray!).

That means that we get to face Chris Sale and Boston, in Fenway. Ugh. He beats us, as Tanaka surrenders 17 solo home runs.

But then...

Game Two will most likely be David Price against CC (ALTHOUGH...since it's an away game, maybe you throw Sonny Gray?? I know:  crazy talk.)

In any case, as we've shown, we can beat Price. Then it's back to Yankee Stadium. If the off-days line up right, we're pitching Sevvy again, versus, say Rick Porcello. By no means a gimme, but very winnable.

Now THE SOX have a dilemma. They're down 2-1 in games. Do they pitch Sale on short rest, in Yankee Stadium, against whoever we have? Just to tie it?  And then who do they throw?

Maybe that's not how it will go. It would probably be smarter to throw Porcello in Fenway. He'd be tough but he's not unbeatable, and if we do win we're back to Yankee Stadium for a Sevvy-Price match-up to go up 2-1.

There are maybe a half-dozen other ways this could all play out. But my point is that not finishing first by no means finishes us. And I'm not even talking about things like Sale coming down with the sort of cold that apparently got to Corey Kluber last year.

To go out and make some terrible, franchise-damaging deal just to give us a slightly better chance in the first round of the playoffs is ludicrous. It's hitting ourselves in the head with a hammer to win something we could well win anyway.