NEW YORK – For 13 straight regular seasons, the pattern has been boringly formulaic. An All-Star cast of Yankees would show up, methodically plow through the regular season and joylessly punch a ticket into the October tournament. The lone measure of the team would be its performance in the postseason, rather than the journey that got them there.

Not so this year. A team that has not missed the playoffs since 1995, one year before the start of Derek Jeter's career, now stands on the brink of eviction from the postseason. And they know it.

“We're fighting for our lives here,” said Yankees G.M. Brian Cashman.

Already, the Yankees have started to make concession speeches. Their eyes are wide open about the shocking 9.5 game deficit that they face in the American League East. Tampa Bay has already pulled away from them, and a division crown is no longer a realistic hope.

Now, the Red Sox reside six full games ahead of New York in the wild-card race. Before last night's game, New York center fielder Johnny Damon compared the Yankees’ current predicament to one he faced while with the A’s in 2001. That year, Oakland started slowly and the Mariners had pulled away from the division before the end of April en route to a 116-win season.

“(The A’s) really needed to make a push, and we knew that regardless of how well we played, we weren’t going to catch Seattle. We had to focus on all the other teams. That’s kind of what we have to do right now,” said Damon. “We scoreboard watch with the Twins and the White Sox and the Red Sox. Tampa Bay, we should only worry about them when we play them. Catching up nine games with 32 to go, that’s a long road.”

Make that 31. Damon estimated after his team's 7-3 defeat last night that his team must go at least 22-9 over its remaining schedule. But even if they did that, the Sox—who have won 12 of their last 18 games, and will spend almost all of September at home—would merely require a 16-15 finish to their season to at least match New York.

The Yankees had insisted that they controlled their own destiny, but that is no longer the case. Even if New York swept their remaining five games against Boston, they would still be a game behind the Sox.

The development is not quite as shocking as it might have been in past years. The Yankees—like the Red Sox—made a conscious decision prior to this season to preserve their young core.

New York protected its stockpile of young arms such as Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy (now a combined 0-8) rather than following a past formula of paying a heavy price in prospects and money to acquire the best available players, most notably Johan Santana.

Of course, the Yankees still expected that even as they dealt with youthful inconsistencies from their pitching staff, they still might bludgeon other teams. The team, Cashman believed, would contend.

“You go into every season understanding that it's a slippery slope. If things don't go your way with health and performance, there's enough quality teams that they can prevent you from getting where you want to be. That's true every year,” said Cashman. “We fully expected to contend with the personnel we had.”

While the inconsistencies of the younger players might have been expected, it would have been hard to anticipate the struggles of an offense that features the likes of Damon, Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Jason Giambi.

One year after they scored a major-league best 968 runs, the Yankees are on pace to score just 785 this year. They have scored three or fewer runs 55 times this year. They cannot explain it.

“If you told us that (would happen) at the beginning of the season, I would have said impossible,” said Damon. “Hopefully it doesn't happen too many more times this year.”

Yet a team that has, for more than a decade, treated the postseason as a certainty now is shadowed by doubt at every turn. The Yankees have a brutal schedule, with five more games against the Red Sox, six against Tampa, four against the White Sox and six against a Blue Jays team with the American League's best pitching staff.

And they are now looking up in the standings at a Red Sox team that is brimming with confidence, and that sees a chance to send off Yankee Stadium by driving a stake into the hearts of their rivals. It is a rare opportunity, and one that the Sox seem to relish.

“You can't do no better than what we're doing right now,” said Sox slugger David Ortiz. “You've got to put whoever you play against away. That's how it is, especially at this time.”

Alex Speier is a Senior Writer for WEEI.com.