I've gotten to see the Red Sox win the World Series three times in the last 15 years. That bought a lot of things, but the best is the elimination of any kind of agitation about baseball.
So yes, the race appears to be tightening. If they blow it, they blow it. I don't think they'll blow it, but if they do, c'est la vie. This has been such an incredibly entertaining team and summer, so I can't complain about that.
I think one thing the Yankee sweep did was maybe give a false impression NYY were floundering or not as good as they are. They are really, really damn good and while the sweep was huge--you gotta beat them no matter what shape they're in--we clearly caught them at the right time, too. The race getting tighter, to me, is just the natural order of the season. There's not much separating those two rosters. Six back with a month to go is a tall order, though, especially if they manage to split those last head-to-heads.