BRING ON BOSTON

Sevy, Judge power Yanks past A’s to set up showdown with hated Sox

Yankees ace Luis Severino, who pitched four shutout innings, enjoys bubbly bath after the Bombers brushed aside the Oakland A’s 7-2 at the Stadium on Wednesday to advance to the ALDS against the Red Sox.

Luis Severino let loose with a scream as he pounced off the mound after getting out of the fourth inning Wednesday night. The Yankees’ right-hander had pitched brilliantly for four innings, he’d proven his doubters wrong and he had gotten the wild card history from last year off his back.

“I would say satisfaction,” Severino said was his emotions. “It was a big inning, (runners on) bases can get a tie game or even worse. So it was really big.”

And so was Severino Wednesday night.

Setting the tone with a dominating start as the Yankees went on to beat the A’s 7-2 in the American League wild card game. They advance out of the wild card game for the second straight year, this time moving on to the American League division series against their division rival Red Sox.

The best-of-five game series begins Friday night in Fenway.

Severino was able to work with a two-run lead after Aaron Judge’s two-run homer in the bottom of the first inning. The Yankees extended the lead with Aaron Hicks’ RBI double and Luke Voit’s two-run triple in the bottom of the sixth. Voit then surprisingly beat out a throw from left on Didi Gregorius’ sacrifice fly to cap the four-run sixth. Giancarlo Stanton crushed a towering 443-foot homer in the eighth, his first playoff home run.

But Severino set the tone. He was not the obvious choice to make the start in the wild card game. He’d had a dreadful second half, he had been out-pitched by both J.A. Happ and Masahiro Tanaka. And then there was the memory of last year’s wild card game disaster, when he couldn’t get out of the first inning.

But Aaron Boone said he felt that Severino had turned the corner and shown he could survive adversity in pitching well after last season’s wild card clunker.

And the first-year Yankee manager was right. Severino was the perfect highvelocity fastball pitcher that gave the A’s trouble.

It was just four innings, but it was four dominating innings of work, considering where Severino was coming from. In the last two months, Severino pitched to a 5.67 ERA in 73 innings over 14 starts, allowing 13 home runs. It was a shocking turn after he started the season pitching to a 1.98 ERA with a .195 batting average against over 118 innings in his first 18 starts.

Severino cruised through the first, needing just ten pitches to get further than he had the year before. He took a nohitter into the fifth, but he had to work to get there.

Ironically, after all the talk about his inability to work with Gary Sanchez, Severio was saved in the fourth by his catcher. After walking two, Severino put a twoout, two-strike 88-mile an hour slider into the dirt. Sanchez, who is not known for his ability to block balls, dropped on it and saved the Yankees a run.

Severino then blew a 100-mile an hour fastball past Marcus Semien to get the third out. He let out a primal scream as he walked off the mound after getting out of the jam looking like he was done.

But with the no-hitter still alive, Aaron Boone had a tough call. The A’s were about to face Severino for the third time in the game, when opponents have a .316 batting average against him.

The first-year Yankee manager sent Severino out to start the fifth, but had Dellin Betances up and working to get hot in the bullpen as well.

It was quickly clear Severino had spent all he had getting out of the fourth-inning spot. Jonathan Lucroy jumped on a first-pitch, lazy slider to single to left field leading off the fifth. He then gave up a solidly hit single to Nick Martini.

Severino knew he was done and he was fine with that.

“I think that was the plan, go four or five good innings and after that the bullpen is going to go do their job,” Severino said. “And when I went into the first inning that was the mindset. I went there and get my job done.”

That was all the satisfaction Severino and the Yankees needed Wednesday night.