Earlier today the Yankees kissed the surface of the AL Wild card lead before sinking a half-game back behind Detroit, winners of their evening game against Tampa Bay. The Bombers are on the playoff cusp that seemed all so far away a few weeks ago when just about everyone had checked their pulse and pronounced them dead. Now they are New York City’s darlings again…once again you have to dive several pages deep in the sports section to get past the glowing reports of the Yankee offense to find any word on the Mets — by the way, congrats to Tom Glavine on 300.

Yes, faith has been restored in the Big Apple as the Wild Card is now within reach, but this is no time to get too giddy. The real work still lies ahead for the Yanks who have a slew of tough games to come and are far from their real goal, the AL East title. As I write these words Boston and Curt Schilling have just been beaten by the Angels, 4-2, cutting the difference in the AL East to six games. Certainly, Boston has played well enough to deserve the best record in baseball…but who really plays to win the Wild Card? No one — particularly not the Yanks. You play to win the division.

The Yankees went into today’s game with Toronto with every reason to sit back and take a day off. Heck, they’ve been killing meager teams and almost everyone’s batting average is creeping up to .300 (Robinson Cano, the guy many people called overrated a few weeks ago, is up to .308…Hideki Matsui, who many thought was on his way out after that wrist injury was AL player of the month in July with 13 home runs and 28 RBI…). But the Yankees did not rest today. They fought. When Toronto starter Jesse Litsch threw behind A-Rod, the 500-home run man slid hard into second and started yelling at everyone. Sweet.

Later, both Jorge Posada and Matt Stairs got hit. You see, Toronto is only five games behind the Yankees and they’re clawing and scratching to get a piece of the playoff pie…but the Yankees are fighting back.

The Yanks are ready to play, but their goal is still six games off.  This is when it gets real fun to be a fan.