Can the Yankees fail to make the playoffs for the fifth time in six years? Considering the Yankees’ position in the standings this entire season, that seems to be a preposterous question. Don’t, however, look at where the Yankees have been the first five months of the season; look at where they are now.

Right now they are furiously fighting to keep their heads above the waters that are filled with sharks known as the Twins, the Angels and the Orioles. With four weeks left in the season, there are more than enough games for two of those three teams to overtake the Yankees and send them home to an unwanted and unexpectedly extended vacation.

In fact, if you want to be more inclusive, you might add …

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Before Alex Rodriguez was unmasked as a chemically filled fraud, some writers and fans viewed him in the way that fight fans and writers saw the search for a white fighter to beat the racially controversial Jack Jefferson in the 1967 Broadway play and 1970 film “The Great White Hope.”

Barry Bonds, the thinking went at the time, might have hit the most home runs in baseball history, but he cheated and hit many of them with the aid of performance-enhancing drugs. Rodriguez was amassing home runs at such a furious pace – league-leading totals of 52 in 2001, 57 in ’02, 47 in ’03, 48 in ’05, 54 in ’07 – he appeared to be on his way to supplanting Bonds.

To see A-Rod as baseball’s Great White Hope had nothing to do with his or Bonds’ skin color, but the legitimacy of their home runs. When it became obvious that Bonds’ season-record 73 home runs in 1991 and many of his career-record 762 home runs were P.E.D. produced, many of us felt the need for a new homer hero.

And then the image of Rodriguez as that homer hero came crashing down, turning into smoke and ashes. Who does that leave? …

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How should we judge Aaron Judge? On the basis of the first 10 weeks of the season? On his performance in the 11 weeks since then? Or should we wait for him to play the remaining six weeks and maybe post-season games, too, before making a final decision?

It is a conundrum. Look up that word in a Thesaurus, and you’ll find these synonyms: puzzle, mystery, challenge, problem, riddle. Choose any of those, and that’s what Judge’s season has been.

In the first 10 weeks, he was a rookie phenomenon, leading the major leagues or the American League in practically every significant offensive category. Look for his name now among the offensive leaders. Where did he go?

He was so good in the first 10 weeks and produced so many impressive statistics that as much as he has waned in the past 11 weeks he still is ahead of everyone else in some categories. For example …

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