This would all be easier for the Yankees if Luis Severino were the Luis Severino of last season or the first half of this year.
If he were, perhaps, the Yankees would be a touch closer to the Red Sox. They certainly would be feeling better about their likely destination — an Oct. 3 wild-card game at Yankee Stadium.
A baseball season is a volatile, unpredictable organism. Every time it feels deducible, human beings act all human — which is to say, with results fluctuating beyond expected patterns. Still, with a month remaining, it feels as if the Yankees are not going to win enough to catch the Red Sox to capture the AL East or lose enough to be caught by the A’s for the first wild card.