CELEBRATE THE LITTLE THINGS

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The leadership literature all say the same thing: Celebrate successes, no matter how small because they give your team the drive to keep going.  Well, that's where I am at folks.  I am encouraging us as fans and the Yankee team as a whole to celebrate the little glimmers of success and use these moments to fuel us for the road ahead.

Source: Jim McIsaac/Getty Images North America

As ESPN stated earlier in the week, "Since there still is time and a mathematical chance for them to roar back and snatch the division -- something they famously did exactly 40 years ago -- the Yankees aren't done believing." And with this weekend celebrating the 1998 Yankees, a team that will live in Yankee and baseball lore, you have to believe the Yankees can catch the division.  But should that be their focus?

AP Photo/Michael Dwyer

Aaron Judge has the answer to that question with his statement here: "We're always hunting for the division. August just started. We've got August and September. A lot of crazy things have happened. For us, our goal has always been the division. It doesn't matter how many games we're back. We're going to keep fighting for that." Fair and with Giancarlo Stanton on track for career home run 300, Miguel Andujar on track for Rookie of the Year honors and guys like Didi Gregorius and Brett Gardner consistently anchoring and focusing this team, we need to celebrate the successes we have had and will continue to realize with many days left in the season.

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NJ.com says that, "It might be all about maintaining that AL wild card lead now. But the way Boone sees it, “we need to get on another roll where we’re playing like we know we’re capable of. “And right now, I feel like we’re battling through that a little bit.’’ We got on a roll on Friday night, battling back from a terrible first inning by Lance Lynn.  The rain gave us a reprieve of losing it in the late innings, Luis Severino gave us a good outing on Saturday and the Yankees offense backed him up with eight runs, eventually winning 11-6.  But then there's the bullpen issues, or rather mismanagement of the bull pen by rookie manager Aaron Boone, the lack of defense in right field by rookie right fielder Neil Walker and the woes of Gleyber Torres that pull the team down.

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Again I go back to the best practice of celebrating the little successes to fuel the future ones.  Whether it's the division, or the Wild Card, if we are lucky, the Yankees have to give it their all and use the wins, the smaller successes and celebrations to carry them through the tougher times knowing that the best is still left to come. Stay faithful fans!

--Suzie Pinstripe
BYB Managing Editor
Twitter: @Suzieprof