Five reasons Yanks will make it ... and why they won't

I'd love to sit here and tell you, with the certainty of some of those screaming heads you see on ESPN, that the Yankees will make the postseason. Or, if you're a Yankees hater, I'd love to tell you that they won't. I aim to please.

But as the Tigers showed us in coughing up the division title last year, and the Phillies of '64 proved to a lot of people in the most infamous baseball case of a sure thing gone bad, "will" and "won't" are sometimes pretty stupid stances to take at this point of the year. "Probably" is a lot safer, even if it gets you laughed off the panel on all those talk shows.

If you don't particularly care for "mights," though, here are five reasons why the Yankees will absolutely, unequivocally, take-it-to-the-ATM reach the playoffs this year. And then I'll give you five failsafe reasons why they won't.

Take your pick. Ignore the other.

Five Reasons You'll see the Yanks in the Postseason

Hideki Matsui is batting .344 with 15 home runs since July 1. AP

POLL How far will the Yankees go this season? World Series champs AL champs First-round winners First-round losers No playoffs  View Results

That deep, deep, deeeeeep lineup: No kidding, huh? This is a sickly strong group of hitters, nearly from top to bottom. After Johnny Damon or Melky Cabrera (Yankee leadoff guys have a .354 on-base percentage), the lineup gets especially studly. Derek Jeter, Bobby Abreu, Alex Rodriguez, Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada. Robinson Cano is hitting .309 and he usually bats seventh or eighth. Jason Giambi's back. It's ridiculous. And the Yankees are feeling it, too.

"We're not waiting around for something to happen," manager Joe Torre said recently. "We're trying to make things happen."

How good can this juggernaut be? In a two-week span from July 29-Aug. 13, the Yanks went 12-2 and hit .348 with a 1.207 OPS as a team. Yeah, the lineup can go cold, as it did in a 12-0 loss to Baltimore on Tuesday. But with that many good hitters, a lot of them have to go south at once for this team to feel it.

The starting pitching isn't great, but it's better than most: Roger Clemens (4-5, 5.00 ERA) hasn't been quite what everyone expected, and he's definitely not worth the money ($28 million). But, since when did the Yanks care about money? Put Clemens in a rotation with Mike Mussina, Chien-Ming Wang, Andy Pettitte and young Phil Hughes and, with that lineup, the Yanks have plenty to win a lot of games. The rotation went 10-1 in that 14-game streak mentioned above, though they did struggle with a 4.63 ERA.

Notable: In his past seven starts, Pettitte is 5-1 with a 3.15 ERA.

The competition is fading (or most of it): Even if the Yanks don't overtake the Red Sox to win a 10th straight American League East title, things have become interesting. Since May 29, the Yanks are 46-24, the best record in baseball. The Sox are a mere 36-33 since then, and their 14 ½-game lead is now down to five games.

As for the wild card, the Yanks (8 ½ back on May 29) are in a virtual dead heat because of their surge over the past 12 weeks or so. Since May 29, the Indians are just 35-35, and the Tigers just 36-33. If there's one wild-card team Yanks' fans should worry about, it's the Mariners (or the West-leading Angels, if they fall back). Seattle is 41-27 since May 29, the Angels 37-28.

They're the Yankees: Rather than breaking out the "mystique" and "aura" lines here, let's just say this team has a history of playing well when it counts. Chalk it up to the ghosts at the stadium, the veterans in the clubhouse, Torre's steady hand or our two favorite strippers, but starting in 1995, the Yankees have had just one losing September (in 2000). Their record over that span, in September-only games: 203-121(.627), the equivalent (about) of a 101-win season.

Joba Chamberlain: The New York media horde is all ready in love with this hard-throwing 21-year-old reliever, though he has a grand total of five innings to his big-league credit. He's the setup man the Yanks have been looking for, the scribes say. He pitched a perfect eighth inning Monday, striking out two, in a win over the Orioles.

OK, so maybe the New York press is jumping the gun just a little. Stop the presses on that one ...

1 of 2