First of all, a happy and healthy New Year to our intergalactic, Jewish SU subscribers.

SU enjoyed the recent hot streak of the Yankees but clearly performance is now “reverting to the mean” as David Cone likes to say for 2021. It’s interesting to focus on what went right in the 13-game winning streak, and what is now going wrong (as in what they did the entire first half of the season) as we move into September:

1. When they were winning, the big boppers were all hot for some of that time. Judge, Stanton and even Voit (for a week) fueled those wins.
2. Also importantly, it was the contact hitters in the lower part of the order who did a lot – timely hits, getting on base, moving the runners (what????) and playing good defense (oh, yeah). Velazquez played excellent shortstop while Gleyber was out, and hit just as well. Tyler Wade had a hot streak in there, too. Boone did his best to cool things by playing Jonathan Davis but by and large, this was a more balanced line-up.
3. The starters provided some length so that the bullpen would not get over-used. But now Britten is out for the year, Loaisiga is out for a couple of weeks (huge loss) and Chapman is well, not entirely comfortable. A 5-inning start creates big problems, and this guy Heaney is historically bad.
4. Judge and Stanton have cooled temporarily. We hope? Judge will hit again but Stanton is known to go a month with no production.
5. Joey Gallo has been consistent – strikes out 50% of the time. It’s remarkable but he says his approach is unique and he will stay with it. The hope is that Boone puts him down in the order to continue his consistency out of harm’s way. But he seems very reluctant to bat him lower than 5th.
6. Urshela has an issue with his hand or wrist. He is making very uncharacteristic errors. But Odor is no better (SU is done with him) and Boone won’t play Wade anymore.

Bottom line: SU can very easily see the Blue Jays catching them for the Wild Card. They are a young, hungry team with a great offense. The Yankees are terrible vs. the AL East this year, and Baltimore has really hurt them. The Red Sox are not world beaters but SU sees them finishing ahead of the Yankees. This has not been an enjoyable season. Remember, the Yankees were picked to be in the World Series this season.

Meanwhile, amazingly, the Mets are right there. If their closer, Diaz, was a bit more consistent, they actually might be in 1st place. The series this weekend with the Yankees is huge. Atlanta has come back down to earth. This will be fun.

Finally, the US Open has been amazing this year with great matches and the arrival of a slew of youngsters on both the men’s and women’s side. My man Djokovic is still hanging in there and SU says he saves his best performances for the later rounds as the quality of opponent gets better. But he will likely need to beat Berritini, Zverev and then Medvedev in order to win and that is a tall order. However, in winning the French Open, he beat Berritini, Nadal and Tsitsipas in order so it can be done.