BOSTON _ The Yankees may not be the same old Evil Empire of the dynasty days.
They certainly seemed to have captured a little more of the nation's affections with Aaron Judge, the face of these Baby Bombers and Luke Voit's "every man, blue collar" persona has many rooting for the pinstripes at least in his corner of the Midwest.
But while the Yankees come into this American League Division Series against the Red Sox as the wild-card winner and with fewer wins, don't call them the underdogs.
"We don't see ourselves as an underdog. Obviously Boston had a tremendous season. They have a tremendous team. We respect them and they respect us as well," Yankee reliever Dellin Betances said at Thursday's workout day before the best-of-five series began on Friday. "Obviously for the past two weeks it's probably the first time we've had our team healthy, fully healthy. So it's fun. We've been playing good baseball, and we will try to continue to do so this series."
So what the Red Sox won a franchise-record 108 games.
The Yankees won 100 _ and they come into Fenway Friday night with as complete a team as they could have hoped for. Their rotation is lined up exactly as they had hoped. They have Judge, Gary Sanchez, Didi Gregorius and Aroldis Chapman finally back healthy.
"We feel really good about where we are, and especially for much of the second half obviously dealing with different injuries and guys being down. You know, it's arguably as whole as we've been all season long," first-year Yankee manager Aaron Boone said. "And with the additions that we're able to make, we feel like we're really good club right now.
"You know, we played pretty well down the stretch the last week or ten days or so when we needed to play well," Boone added. "And obviously got off to a good start last night. But I think the guys are in a good place or in a good frame of mind, and are playing with some confidence."
And there may be a little bit of an advantage to having played the wild-card game Wednesday night, giving the Yankees some momentum.
"I think there's a benefit in playing. The fact is the final week of the season we were still playing for a lot and playing against tough competition in going to Tampa, and having to deal with them, and then having to come here and then playing obviously a win or go home last night, where there's a lot on the line," Boone said. "I think there is some benefit to that in being in those games, playing in meaningful games, playing with a lot on the line each and every day. Hopefully that's something that serves us well."
