Yankees out to write different ending in 2021

The Yankees are always interesting, just because they're the Yankees. But they may be more interesting this season then they have been since they were still managed by Joe Torre, and as much a team to watch as any in the game, starting on Thursday afternoon at the Stadium.

The Indians haven't won the World Series since 1948, so chronologically that is the biggest current Series drought in baseball. But the 11 seasons the Yankees have gone since they won their last Fall Classic in 2009 feels longer to Bombers fans. Like Ice Age long. And that doesn't mean the movie.

Now they're loaded again and every bit as fascinating as ever, even though it is the Dodgers who have been doing things in October over the past few years that the Yankees were supposed to do, including winning it all last October. On Thursday at Yankee Stadium, they will field a lineup that has Gerrit Cole, who has the chance to be the first ace of their league since Ron Guidry. They will run out Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, both of whom have 50-homer seasons in their resumes. Stanton once hit 59 for the Marlins. The only two players in Yanks history to hit more are a couple of famous ones named Babe Ruth and Roger Maris.

DJ LeMahieu, a batting champion in both leagues who hit .364 in 2020, goes to second and Gleyber Torres, who hit 38 home runs two years ago, goes to short. Gary Sánchez, who once broke in hitting 20 homers in his first 55 games, is the catcher and, despite all the drama about his defense and a rather remarkable .147 batting average last season, is still just 28 years old. The Yankees can mash so much that they may hardly miss Luke Voit, who led baseball in home runs last season and is currently on the injured list because of left knee surgery.

They are totally as much a team to watch this season as the Dodgers, Padres, Braves, a young White Sox team now being managed by 76-year old Tony La Russa and any other contender you care to mention.

But once again you start here with the Yankees:

Can they get enough starting pitching with a rotation that includes three guys -- Corey Kluber, Jameson Taillon, Domingo Germán -- who pitched a grand total of one inning among them in 2020?

And can they keep Judge and Stanton on the field together, and across a full season, for the first time, so that the two big guys can be the mash unit we keep expecting them to be and not part of the " M*A*S*H" unit that the Yankees became in 2019 and '20.

Manager Aaron Boone (even he had to miss a few days in Spring Training when he had a pacemaker installed) was asked the other day to describe his team's attitude as it heads north:

"Hungry. We understand we're a talented team, but we also understand we haven't done anything yet," said Boone. "We hope that we've started to lay a foundation to be a championship club. It's a lot of guys that have obviously, in a lot of cases, been here now a few years and have experienced a lot of highs, playoff success, playoff failures, disappointing ends to the season. We've added people to the mix that we feel like can be ingredients to help us get over the hump. But I feel this team is a very hungry group. We want to kick that door in in the worst kind of way."

You know how worried Yankee fans are about the team's general health when you saw Judge trending the other day because he got scratched from a game because he was feeling under the weather. Zack Britton, the late-inning guy who pitches before Aroldis Chapman, is out until late May at the earliest.

But even without Voit, who hit 22 homers in 56 games in the short season of 2020, and even as right-hand-bat-heavy as they are, the Yankees have as dangerous an offense as anybody has. In Cole they have the kind of ace that only a handful of other teams have. Torres is set to remind everybody that by the end of '19 he looked like one of the most exciting young talents around. And then did again in the postseason, when he was the Yankees' best hitter against the Indians and then the Rays. I've said this before, but maybe in the best version of the '21 Yankees we start to think Torres is their best all-around player.

Here is what LeMahieu says about Torres being his partner in the middle of the infield: "It's a dangerous combo when [Gleyber] is focused like he is and as talented as he is."

The Yankees are no lock, even in the American League East, where the Rays never go away and the Blue Jays are coming. The Yanks still look like the best team in the AL again, maybe by a lot. It's not just LeMahieu and Torres who are dangerous. The Yankees are dangerous. If they pitch, which means if they have more than one reliable starter come October. If they stay healthy.

So the Yankees start the season with the same questions as always, trying to write a different ending this time at Yankee Stadium.