Nearly two months ago I came to a horrible and very premature decision. With three months left in Major League Baseball season I decided, more as a journalist than fan, that the New York Yankees were finished. The Red Sox?s lead in the American League East seemed insurmountable and they needed to leapfrog a handful of teams to even make a play for the Wild Card. I mused on what Jorge Posada and Derek Jeter would do during their first-ever October vacation, blaming the likes of Bobby Abreu and Robinson Cano for the Yankees? futility. Now with a little less than a month left in the season New York is right in the thick of the AL playoff race. After sweeping Boston earlier this week the Yankees are just a handful of games behind the Sox, who have seem to have held the division lead all season. Not only that, but they have actually taken hold of the lead in the Wild Card race, ahead of the Seattle Mariners, who they will play in just a few days. If you thought this week?s three-game set against the Sox was huge, wait until their series against the Mariners kicks off on Monday. If you haven?t been paying attention to the Yankees? recent rise in the standings, you might wonder how such a turnaround could have taken place. During their two month tear Alex Rodriguez went through a week-long slump, Mike Mussina has been taken out of the rotation, Derek Jeter has been nursing a minor injury and Johnny Damon, of all people, has been playing in left field. The answer lies in the two players I blamed for the Yankees hardship roughly sixty days ago. Bobby Abreu and Robinson Cano have been red hot this summer, with both closing in on 100 RBI seasons, despite their early season slumps. It was Cano who won Thursday?s game against Boston, after hitting two solo home runs off Curt Schilling, the only blemishes on an otherwise perfect performance from the aging Sox legend. It was then Abreu who broke things open in the eighth inning against the Sox superb bullpen, hitting the four-hundredth double of his career and leading a double-steal that would eventually score two runs on a throwing error by Jason Varitek. If I were scoring the game, Abreu would have been given a pair of RBIs for allowing the Yankees to put the game away before it entered the ninth inning. Of course, the Yankees must also credit their pitching staff for their current upswing. Mussina may have struggled as of late, but he did win four-straight starts before his three horrendous ones. Then there are New York mainstays like Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens, who have kept the team in nearly every game they?ve started. Chien-Ming Wang has also done his part as the de facto ace of Joe Torre?s rotation. He holds one of the Major League?s best records over the last two seasons (35-12), but doesn?t often get the credit he deserves because of the other names that call the Bronx home. Without Wang the Yankees would probably still be down eight or nine games to the Sox, and be on the outside looking in on the AL Wild Card race. The Yankees? starting pitching has been good, but Mussina?s inconsistency and Philip Hughes? growing pains have put more pressure on the Bronx bullpen. Kyle Farnsworth hasn?t helped New York any, but the trio of Joba Chamberlain, Luis Vizcaino and Mariano Rivera has been lights out. When they acquired Vizcaino from Arizona the Yanks expected him to perform this way and Rivera is widely known as one of the best pitchers in the game?s history, but I don?t think anyone expected Chamberlain to be this good, this soon. Joba has become a household name in the tri-state area, with his legend growing with each and every relief appearance. Chamberlain is expected to be the Yankees? starter of the future, but for now he?ll remain the most stable bridge to Mariano the Bombers have had in quite some time. He?s yet to give up a run in over eleven innings of work, striking out an astounding seventeen of the thirty-four batters he?s retired. He even inadvertently injected himself into Yankee-Red Sox lore after pitching high-and-inside to Kevin Youkilis twice on Thursday, getting himself a two-game suspension for good measure. Although the Yankees owe a great deal of their success this summer to acquired talent such as A-Rod and Abreu, it?s their homegrown talent of the past (Jeter, Posada and Rivera), present (Cano, Wang and Melky Cabrera) and future (Hughes and Chamberlain) that have kept them afloat. That?s a refreshing change in New York, which had taken to buying talent rather than building it from within. No one knows exactly when the Yankees decided to alter their strategy, but the declining health of George Steinbrenner is certainly one possible answer. These Yankees are a team that you can root for as a proud fan, not one afraid of failure because of expectations that are much higher than any team should have placed upon them. The Yankees have proven me wrong as a fan before, but for the first time they have made me wrong as a journalist. As a card-carrying member of ?Yankee Nation? I?m not losing sleep over how wrong my premature proclamation was, and I?m grateful for the chance to say just how wrong I was two months ago. Who knows, maybe I?ll have another opportunity to showcase just how wrong I was to count out the Yankees in another two months. After all, October is when all of our questions get answered and only the very best teams get the chance to prove millions wrong. Do you think the Yankees have enough gas left in the tank to clinch a playoff spot in the skintight American League? [email protected]