Bronx Is Burning

By their standards, seven years is a long wait. For the 19th time since divisional play began, and for first time since 2012, the New York Yankees have won the American League's Eastern division. They've also reached the 100 win mark, doing both with a 9-1 win over the Angels at Yankee Stadium on Thursday night. When you consider what this team has gone through as this year has gone along, a hat tip is due in the direction of upper management, the coaching staff, and the players of the New York Yankees.

When the season started seven months ago, there was high expectations, as there always is, around the Bombers. It was World Series or bust, from the Yankee point of view. As the season rolled along, injuries really started to hit hard. Luis Severino missed most of the year with injury, while CC was in and out for part of the year with the same thing. The offense was depleted at times this year on paper, Giancarlo Stanton has missed a lot of time this year, and when he was in the lineup he hasn't really found his stride. In grand total, 30 Yankees went down to injury this year, the most of any team in the Majors.

But that's what a great team and great organization manages to do. They find a way to fill the next man up. Somebody goes down, they just plug in somebody else and keep right on moving along. A great general manager finds a way to go out and grab the talent to keep plugging into those holes. Then there's the manager. Aaron Boone has done an amazing job being able to get the best talent out of his players this year and keep them motivated to win. He's found the right formula to keep his players in line and keep them fired up and going out there and playing hard every single day.

It marks the second year in a row that the Yankees have hit the 100 win mark and will no doubt be their highest win total for a season, when all is said and done, since they won 103 games in 2009. They could very well surpass that with eight games left. So they could possible pass what they did during the 2009 season. Of course, for it to really pass that year, they would have to end this year the way they did that one.That's with a 28th World Series crown.

Of course, teams like the Dodgers  and Astros could get in their way of the World Title, but the fact that they are here right now, with a 19th AL East title and another 100 win season says a lot. With all that this team has been through this year with the injuries, this title has got to feel really good.