CLEVELAND — No panic for Hal Steinbrenner. No overt level of concern, either. The managing general partner of the Yankees remains confident in his team while it wrestles for control of the AL East with the Toronto Blue Jays.
“I said in the offseason several times that if we stayed healthy, which is something we haven’t been able to do the last couple years, and if the middle of the lineup produced, which they didn’t do last year, then we were going to be contenders, and we are,” Steinbrenner said Wednesday. “It’s still ours to lose.”
Steinbrenner made his remarks on a quiet first day of meetings for baseball owners in Chicago and before the Yanks lost to the Tribe Wednesday, which knocked them out of first in the AL East.