And willing

Yankee team. It is theirs.

Now they have a chance to knock off an Indians team that they might have knocked off already if a lot of things had gone differently in Game 2 after it was 8-3 for the Yankees, because of a lot of challenging — and unchallenging — things that happened from the bottom of the sixth on. Now here they are. Sabathia goes into a ballpark where he once pitched brilliantly and is asked to win the kind of deciding game against the Indians that he couldn’t win for them all the way back in 2007, when the Indians were ahead 3-1 in an ALCS against the Red Sox. Corey Kluber, the Indians ace now the way Sabathia was then, tries to win that kind of game for the home team, even after the way the Yankees smacked him around but good in Game 2.

The Yankees try to come all the way back against Francona the way he came all the way back against them in ’04, in the most famous postseason series ever played, one that changed his history and Red Sox history and Yankee history over four nights in October. And Francona tries not to watch one of his teams lose the last three games of its postseason the way it did in the last baseball October against the Cubs in the World Series.

Who knows what happens if Aaron Judge doesn’t bring back Frankie Lindor’s ball in Game 3, a ball that would have made it 2-0 for the Indians in the game and effectively ended the Yankees’ season? Who knows if there even is a Game 5 if Girardi had challenged the home plate umpire’s call that Lonnie Chisenhall had been hit by a pitch before Lindor hit a grand slam high up the foul pole in right? None of that matters today. What matters is that the Yankees have a chance in Game 5 on Wednesday night to play themselves into baseball’s Final Four.

It also no longer matters that they may be ahead of schedule. The only schedule that matters is the one that gets them this game in Cleveland.

“This isn’t just about the future,” Girardi said to me one day in spring training, before a game at the Ballpark of the Palm Beaches in West Palm Beach. And the same day Brian Cashman, the general manager, who changed everything for his team this season with the deal he made with the White Sox for Robertson and Todd Frazier and Tommy Kahnle at the trade deadline, said this: “We’re not conceding anything.” I’ve written and believed ever since the trade deadline that Cashman didn’t make his deals just to be a wild card. He made them because he believed his team had a chance to do a lot more than that. Now he has watched the way everybody has watched as the team has gotten back up after one of the worst postseason losses the Yankees have had in years. Conceding nothing.

Winner of Game 5 gets the Astros. Loser goes home. Nobody cares about the other years right now. Just this year. This game on Wednesday night. All the future the Yankees could have asked for back in the spring. All the future they want. An old line works for the new New York Yankees: Future is now. Chapman came on to finish the job and record a five-out, 34-pitch save.

Speaking of the $86 million closer, it’s hard to believe Chapman got demoted from that role earlier this season the way he’s throwing the ball. The Cuban Flamethrower continues to light up the radar gun, and he hasn’t surrendered a run in his last 16.2 innings while striking out 26 over that span -- with seven saves in seven opportunities.

“He’s probably available for a couple innings if I need him,” Girardi said of Chapman.

Credit s due to Masahiro Tanaka and Luis Severino, who got only one out in the wild-card game, for going deep in Games 3 and 4 — seven innings each — saving the relief corps in the process. Same goes for Tommy Kahnle, who bailed out the extremely inconsistent Dellin Betances in Game 4, with a dominant two-inning outing. And Game 5 will indeed be an all-hands-on-deck effort if necessary.

For Robertson and Green, it’s a possible chance at redemption at the same stadium in which they combined to cough up a five-run lead after Sabathia was pulled despite having thrown just 77 pitches and retiring 12 of his last 13 with one out in the sixth.

That was a disappointing ending – an ending the Bombers would like to change on Wednesday night.