This is the standings for the American League East after the games on Sunday, May 16 were completed. It is the first time the New York Yankees have had a .500 winning percentage since early April. Their current 8 game winning streak has created a feeling of hope among both their fans and the media. The newspaper headlines no longer talk about the “Slumping Yankees”. Instead, it is now the “Surging Yankees” who are “climbing” up in the standings.

How likely is it that the Yankees will win the Eastern Division? Did their poor start doom the team in the playoff race this year? In this analysis, I will not consider the F-Rays since they have such a strong affinity for the bottom of the standings. The Toronto Blue Jays are at best a .500 team so that leaves us with the Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox, and the Yankees.

If the Orioles continue to win at their current pace, the Yankees would have to play like the Yankees of 1998 with a .700 winning percentage to finish ahead of them. Fortunately for the Yankees and their fans, it is very unlikely that the Orioles will continue to play this well. Last year, the Orioles finished around .500. If they win at this rate for the rest of the year, the Yankees would have to win around 55% of their games to catch them. If we give the O's credit for significant improvement over last year's team and assume that they are more likely a .550 team (89 wins over a full season), the Yankees have to win almost 60% of their remaining games. That would mean that this year's team would have to play as well as last year's team for the rest of the season. It is quite possible that the Yankees will finish in front of the Orioles.

Even though the Red Sox are currently behind the Orioles in the standings, they are by far the better team. The Red Sox have won about 60% of their games so far in the 2005 season. There is no reason to think that they cannot continue winning at this pace since they are doing it right now without two of their top starting pitchers in Curt Schilling and David Wells. If they do maintain their current winning ways, the Yankees will need to have a winning percentage of .630 from today forward to place ahead of the Red Sox. The Yankees have only had a winning percentage this high in two of the years of their current run starting in 1996. It is not looking good for the Yankees finishing ahead of the Red Sox this year.

All of this is from a fairly optimistic perspective—that the Yankees are showing their true ability now as opposed to the April version of the team. If the team's future performance is actually closer to the team that was crushed by the Devil Rays than the one that did the same to the Mariners and Athletics, neither a division crown nor a wild card spot is in the team's future.