Yankees are 'the best team in the league,' declares Jazz Chisholm Jr. after third straight win

The Yankees currently sit three games behind the Blue Jays in the AL East

The New York Yankees outlasted the Boston Red Sox (NY 5, BOS 3) Saturday afternoon at Fenway Park for their third straight win. Following a midsummer lull, the Yankees are an MLB-best 21-9 since Aug. 11, and they have a 2 ½-game lead over the Red Sox for the top wild card spot. New York can clinch a postseason berth within the next week.

Second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. drove in what proved to be the game-winning run Saturday with a solo home run. It was his 29th homer of the season. He already has 30 stolen bases. With one more home run, Chisholm will join Bobby Bonds (1975) and Alfonso Soriano (2002 and 2003) as the only 30-30 players in Yankees' history.

"(Going 30-30) would mean a lot if we win the division with it," Chisholm told reporters, including MLB.com, following Saturday's win. "All I want to do is come out with a win after the game every day."

That wasn't all Chisholm said Saturday. Following the win, he declared the Yankees the best team in the league, though he did acknowledge the Yankees too often beat themselves with careless defense and shoddy baserunning. Here's what Chisholm said, via MLB.com:

"We're the best team in the league," Chisholm said. "Any team that thinks they're better than us, they should know that when we step on the field, we're coming with relentlessness. We're coming to step on necks. We're not here to play around."

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"We've said it all year long: we've been playing to everybody else's level instead of our own level," Chisholm said. "We've been losing games ourselves; making errors, just having poor at-bats and stuff like that. We finally looked ourselves in the mirror and realized that we're the team to beat. That's how we've been stepping on the field for the past two weeks."

At 83-65, the Yankees are only three games behind the Toronto Blue Jays for the American League's No. 1 seed, so they are a good week away from being the literal best team in the league. At the same time, the Yankees lost the season series to the Blue Jays (8-5), Red Sox (8-4), and Detroit Tigers (4-2). If they're the best team in the league, they haven't played like it against the AL's other top teams.

Sunday's finale against Garrett Crochet and the Red Sox will end a four-series stretch against almost certain AL postseason teams: Blue Jays, Houston Astros, Tigers, and Red Sox. The Yankees are 7-4 11 games into that 12-game stretch, which is quite good even if they have not gained any ground on Toronto in the AL East. New York has one of baseball's easiest remaining schedules.

Once the postseason begins, the Yankees could be as formidable as just about any AL team. Max Fried and Carlos Rodón are a strong 1-2 punch atop the rotation. The lineup is deep with home run hitters and they have sneaky great speed (the Yankees lead MLB in stolen bases since Aug. 1). David Bednar, Fernando Cruz, and Luke Weaver are a solid late-inning trio in the bullpen.

That said, the Yankees do too often beat themselves with shaky defense and poor fundamentals. Those were on full display in the fifth inning of Game 5 of last year's World Series. When the Yankees play a clean game, they tend to win convincingly. When they kick the ball around and give the opponent extra outs and an extra 90 feet, it becomes much more difficult.

Saturday, it should be noted, was also Chisholm's 162nd game as a Yankee since coming over from the Miami Marlins at last year's trade deadline. In those 162 games, he's hit .254/.336/.495 with 40 homers and gone 48-for-56 (86%) in steals. His 6.6 WAR since the trade is a top 15 mark among position players, narrowly ahead of Baltimore Orioles star Gunnar Henderson (6.4 WAR).