Thanks to a rainout Wednesday night, the first place Yankees and last place Tigers played a single-admission doubleheader at Comerica Park on Thursday. The Yankees won both games, taking the opener 10-4 (box score) and the finale 6-4 (box score).
Weather has not been kind to the Yankees this season. Thursday's doubleheader was their seventh this season, their most in a single season in nearly four decades. To their credit, the Yankees have capitalized. Thursday was their sixth sweep in those seven doubleheaders.
Here's the recap:
| Date | Opponent | Game 1 | Game 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
May 15 | Orioles (at home) | 5-3 win | 3-1 win |
May 25 | Royals (on road) | 7-3 win | 6-5 win |
June 11 | Mets (at home) | 12-5 win | 10-4 loss |
July 18 | Rays (at home) | 6-2 win | 5-1 win |
August 3 | Red Sox (at home) | 9-2 win | 6-4 win |
August 12 | Orioles (at home) | 8-5 win | 11-8 win |
September 12 | Tigers (on road) | 10-4 win | 6-4 win |
The Yankees have posted a 13-1 record in 14 doubleheader games this season, which is pretty remarkable. According to research by Devan Fink in 2017, roughly 52 percent of all doubleheaders end in a sweep, so it's more or less a coin flip. The Yankees swept more than 85 percent of their doubleheaders this year.
Not surprisingly, sweeping six doubleheaders in one season is quite rare this days, and has been since regularly scheduled doubleheaders started to go away in the early 1980s. The 2019 Yankees are the first team to ...
- ... sweep as many as five doubleheaders in a season since the 1996 Reds.
- ... sweep six doubleheaders in a season since the Orioles and Pirates in 1979.
Furthermore, the 2019 Yankees are the first Yankees team to play as many as seven doubleheaders since 1982. The last Yankees team to sweep as many as six doubleheaders in a season was the 1973 squad, which swept seven twin bills.
Thursday's doubleheader swept lowered New York's magic number to six. Any combination of Yankees wins and Rays losses the rest of the way clinches the AL East title for the Yankees. It would be their first division title since 2012.
Despite the doubleheader sweep, it was not all good news for the Yankees on Thursday. They lost Edwin Encarnacion (oblique), Gary Sanchez (groin), and J.A. Happ (biceps) to injury. All three are returning to New York for tests to determine the severity of their injuries. For now, the team is hopeful all three injuries are minor.
