After Subway sweep, Yanks get shot at Sox
The Yankees vanquished their crosstown foes this week, and now they have their second chance in as many weekends to strike a blow against their hated division rivals.
After finishing off a four-game Subway Series sweep of the Mets with a 7-5 win Thursday night, the Yankees are in a very similar position heading up to Boston for this weekend’s three-game set against the division-leading Red Sox as they were ahead of last weekend’s series between the two in the Bronx. Entering last Friday the Yanks were 4.5 games behind before losing two out of three, and with the Red Sox off on Thursday, the Yankees moved to within four games back of Boston’s AL East lead.
There is another opportunity here for the Yankees to close the gap in the race for the AL East crown, and each passing series becomes bigger and bigger because the Yanks know the season is winding down.
“As the season progresses — we’re in the middle of August and it’ll be the end of August before too long — you start to run out of time to catch up,” Brett Gardner said Thursday. “Obviously chasing them, four or five games back or whatever it is, all the games we play from here on out are very important, especially the games we play against them. So it’s an important weekend and it’s important we continue to try to win.”
Last weekend’s series started well for the Yanks with a 5-4 win before they dropped the final two games to Boston, the Sunday night defeat coming after Aroldis Chapman blew the save in the ninth inning and gave up another run in the 10th. But now the Yanks ride a fourgame sweep of the Mets into Beantown.
“I think after these four games here, now we’re going to go over there with a lot of energy,” said Luis Severino, who bounced back Thursday by allowing just an unearned run in 6.1 innings.
Chapman remained unavailable Thursday after he felt something in his hamstring on Tuesday, when he gave up two more runs. Joe Girardi said after Thursday’s game he hopes to have Chapman for Friday.
It looked like the Yanks wouldn’t need a closer Thursday, leading 7-1 in the ninth, but Bryan Mitchell gave up a grand slam to Curtis Granderson without recording an out, so Girardi had to turn to Dellin Betances for the fourth time in five days, meaning Betances is likely unavailable Friday. “It’s not what you really want to do, but we had to win the game so I had to go to him,” Girardi said. It certainly would’ve been a catastrophic loss had they blown a six-run lead in the ninth, especially with Boston on tap. Girardi had no choice but to use Betances, who was hoping for a second day of rest, to ensure the sweep and get the Yanks to within four games of the Sox.
Though Yankees players are aware of how many games back they are, Betances is trying not to concern himself with the standings based on previous advice from none other than Derek Jeter.
“Honestly for me, I’ve always kind of learned from Jete,” Betances said. “Jete always said ‘Don’t pay attention to the standings. You’ve just got to control what you can control, and that’s us in here.’ Obviously all of these games are big, but for us we’ve got to play hard and do our jobs because if not — you can look at anything you want. If we don’t do our jobs, we’re not gonna be in a good position.”
What the Yankees had done before the Subway Series was disappointing. They were winless in four straight series before sweeping the Mets, with Gary Sanchez’s homer and five RBI helping to clinch it. There have been letdowns for the Yanks, but opportunities remain, even as fall baseball draws near.
“Obviously we had three at home and had a chance to win two of them and we ended up winning one of them,” Girardi said. “These are really important games for us because the clock is ticking.”