The Yankees are about to break the home run record of facing ALDS.

They were desperately late. Thirty-one back with less than two months to play. Many of the keys to the charge were injured, so the Yankees could not catch up.

But they did it.

In the August 3 games, the Twins had 216 homers, the largest number in the major leagues. Then come the Dodgers at 187, the Astros at 186 and the Yankees at 185. There are 52 games left to play. Gary Sanchez, who was then leading the Yankees in the circuits, was on the injured list, as was Luke Voit, third in the team.

The Yankees played a double title on August 3rd. Edwin Encarnacion broke his right wrist in the opening match and was lost for a month. Aaron Hicks is blew his arm in the nightcap and was lost for the season.

Hicks was one of four Yankees to have delivered 27 homers last year – second in the team that broke the circuit record with 267 points. The other three were Miguel Andujar, who played 12 games this year, and Didi Gregorius and Aaron Judge, missed two months. Giancarlo Stanton led the 2018 Yankees with 38 homers. He played nine games this season before September 18th.

In 2018, these five players together reached 146 circuits, 90 more than they reached this year.

Yet, the 2019 Yankees' story – like so many stories of this difficult season – can be told through circuits. The following men continued to hit them. Brett Gardner and DJ LeMahieu hit them like never before. And Gleyber Torres hit a lot more than expected, especially at the very beginning of his career. The depth of the Yankees has been long, testing the resolution of opponent pitchers and John Sterling's play on words.

On September 10, the Yankees caught the Twins at 276 homers. The Yankees led 298-297 over the weekend. The Yankees would probably like to be the first team at 300 and keep their crown of only one season.

But there's this: since the 1969 expansion, which paved the way for multiple rounds of playoff games, only four teams at the top of the majors have won the World Series and only one since 1985: the last Yankees champion in 2009.

This corresponds to the story hated by Aaron Boone and the sabermetricians around the world: from the month of October, the dependence on homers is bad.

Except you better hit playoff circuits. There have been 168 "best of five" or "best of seven" series in the wild card era (since 1995). The team that strikes more circuits advances disproportionately, with a score of 104-48 (the clubs ended with the same number of circuits 16 times). So, if a team wants to progress, it's better to understand how to hit more circuits, give up less or – preferably – both.

If the season ended today, the Yankees would play the Twins in Division Division. Their most likely opponents if they continue to advance are the ALCS Astros and the World Series Dodgers. These are the 1-2-3-4 ranked teams this season – each having cleared the 267 Yankees from last year. These were the teams with the top four records in the majors.

During the last week of the regular season, the Yankees hope Encarnacion and Sanchez will follow Stanton in the lineup and will be available for the playoffs. So, even without Hicks, Mike Tauchman and Andujar (if you remember what he looks like), the Yankees will not lack power.

From October 4, the questions will be: is the power postponed and the Yankees can much better unplug the power of their opponents? The Yankees and Phillies are the only teams with records to win that rank in the bottom third of the MLB standings in the authorized circuits after nine innings. The Dodgers rank third, the Twins fifth and the Astros 18th. Twelve of the top 13 teams in nine innings have record wins. This includes the Rays, A's and Indians, one of them being the opponent of the Yankees Division Division rather than the Twins if the Yankees replace the Astros with the AL's best record.

Players like Nestor Cortes Jr. and Domingo German will not be part of the Yankees' post-season staff, but J.A. Happ and CC Sabathia will play – albeit in probably more compartmentalized roles.

Before that, the Yankees will try to surpass the Twins for the crown. There is no magic number, not 300 or 305. Who knows how high that will go? Heck, the Yankees were out on Monday and probably hit two more circuits, especially if the Orioles pitchers were nearby. It's that kind of season. Long list. Long balls. And there is still a lot of work to do to find out what all this means.