Key to Yankees’ playoff fate rests in final pieces of pitching equation

Have you experienced a feeling that your favorite team — if your favorite team is a contender — is good enough to win the World Series and flimsy enough to be bounced in the first round? 

If so, I get it. We are in a second straight season in which only one team might have a .600 or better winning percentage, which last happened in consecutive years in 2013 (no teams reached .600) and 2014 (one team did).

The one team this year is the Brewers, and congratulations to them for figuring out the new Moneyball inefficiency, which — ironically for the analytic world — is thriving at the finer parts of the game. But lacking big-time power, Milwaukee also could use its finesse excellence and pitching depth to win its first-ever title or be eliminated in a Division Series.

After Milwaukee, the fun really begins. The Brewers went into Tuesday 4 ¹/₂ games better than any other team in the majors. The next seven teams — from the second-best Phillies to the eighth-best Red Sox — were within 4 ¹/₂ games, then the Padres were five back and the Astros six. Thus, teams No. 2 to No. 10 were within six games, which is why you are experiencing that sense of upside and downside for these clubs.