STARTING TO BUY IN

New Yankees show value as trade deadline nears

Now we know why general manager Brian Cashman and the Yankees are buyers with the non-waiver trade deadline approaching.

Another ace-like start from Luis Severino and an eruption from the lineup in a 9-5 victory Wednesday over the hapless Reds gave the Yankees their third straight win and fifth in their last six games. It also kept them on the heels of the Red Sox at the top of the AL East.

Since Cashman showed the Yankees were going for it in 2017 by trading for Todd Frazier, David Robertson and Tommy Kahnle just over a week ago, the Yankees are 6-2.

That’s no coincidence, according to CC Sabathia.

“Any time a team makes a trade going up to the deadline to get better, it gives a team a boost,’’ said Sabathia, who starts Thursday against Tampa Bay. “Adding those guys was huge. … A move like that can make a huge difference, and maybe that’s what we needed.”

Whatever the cause, the Yankees continued their best stretch in six weeks, using a fiverun seventh to break the game open. The biggest blow was a two-run homer by Didi Gregorius, the fourth time he has gone deep in three games.

Clint Frazier was a force again, driving in a pair of runs and scoring another, while Severino allowed just two unearned runs over seven innings as he continues to cement his place atop the rotation. He gave up three hits and two walks, while fanning nine.

“That was maybe some of the best stuff he’s had all year long,” manager Joe Girardi said of the right-hander, who is 2-0 with a 0.43 ERA in his past three starts.

Though it took a while for the Yankees’ lineup to get going against Cincinnati righthander Homer Bailey, who entered with an 8.56 ERA, the Yankees blew the game open late.

Frazier capped a pair of two-out rallies with run-scoring singles that knocked in Ronald Torreyes in the third and fifth innings before Chase Headley and Torreyes drove in runs in the sixth to stake Severino to a 4-0 lead.

A fielding error by Gregorius to start the seventh led to the only runs the Reds scored against Severino, as he surrendered a runscoring double to Eugenio Suarez and an RBI groundout by Tucker Barnhart to make it 4-2.

The Yankees gave themselves a cushion in the bottom of the inning, with run-scoring hits by Gary Sanchez and Matt Holliday before Gregorius’ 16th home run of the season, a two-run shot.

Todd Frazier added his first homer as a Yankee later in the inning to make it 9-2.

The added runs came in handy when Luis Cessa surrendered a three-run shot to Adam Duvall in the eighth.

David Robertson pitched a scoreless ninth as the Yankees continued their best stretch since a six-game winning streak put them up four games in the division in mid-June. With Wednesday’s result, they won a second consecutive series for the first time in over a month.

Suddenly, the 10-22 stretch the Yankees endured that knocked them out of first place in the division seems a thing of the past.

Holliday, whose lack of production at the plate contributed to that lost month, is confident the Yankees have weathered the storm.

“Something like that can derail a season,” he said. “You’re going to have times in season when you’re not playing well and it’s frustrating. You can battle through it and keep fighting or give in and talk about injuries and say ‘It’s just not our year.’ We added some really important pieces and feel good about where we’re at.”