Ever since Aaron Judge went down at the end of May, the New York Yankees offense has been a shell of themselves. According to the stats on ESPN the Yankees team batting average has dropped every month since May. If they did not have the arguably the best pitching staff in baseball, they could genuinely be out of the playoffs looking in right now. Luckily, on the heels of pitching, they've stayed atop the AL Wild Card, and remain within play to win the division.

When I was listening to the Yankees pregame on the radio last night, I heard it mentioned that these Yankees players are not trying to just make the playoffs, but they plan on winning the division.

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Offense starting to heat up?

Over the past few games, we've seen this offense put runs on the board in almost every way possible. Spencer Jones and Luis Garcia Jr each had a 3 hit game this week including home runs by each. George Lombard Jr, despite being a rookie, has a near .300 batting average, and has shown more discipline at the plate than most this season.

The biggest concern for me with this offense, is that fans may expect Judge and Stanton to return to the lineup and immediately be back to their usual selves. It takes time to get back up to speed when you haven't seen live pitching in months. Having these two especially back in the lineup does help everyone else see better pitches, but they still need to have competitive at bats for that effect to take place.

There is reason to believe, as they are only a few games back of the Rays, and everyone who was slumping has started to break out. But until we see this Yankees offense back at full strength, they will still need to rely on their pitching being as perfect as possible.