Hou are going down!

Yanks can clinch tonight:

H OUSTON — And suddenly, the mantra is flipped.

One game, Joe Girardi has preached, from the very first hour of October, because that’s when it first applied. One game. Don’t worry about consequence. Don’t worry about ramification. Don’t fret over anything other than the nine innings at hand, the 27 outs necessary to finish the task in front of your face. One game.

“Worry about what you can control,” Girardi has said, time and again, during this remarkable 11-game run to Friday night, to Minute Maid Park, to Game 6 of the American League Championship Series and a chance to wrap up the 41st pennant in team history.

For the first time now, “one game” comes without a caveat. The Yankees already have played four elimination games in this postseason. They already have played three must-have games against the Astros in this series, won them all. Now one game vaults them into the World Series, terrain more familiar to the Yankees than to any other team in the sport.

One game keeps a 28th championship in play, One game, knowing there’s the safety net of a Game 7, a cushion that must almost puzzle Yankees players who have spent so much of October tiptoeing the abyss, who have grown accustomed to delivering in important moments because there has been no other choice. One game.

“It’s been a while since we played a game we could afford to lose,” Girardi said Thursday afternoon on a conference call, before the Yankees boarded their plane for Houston, hoping that’s merely a stopover on the way to the Fall Classic. “But our attitude is the same. Win one game.”

It isn’t just that these Yankees have grown expert at reducing the pressures and anxieties of October to a game at a time; they have been proficient in capturing moments, critical moments, a habit that is as helpful an October weapon as anything. Sometimes you need retrospect to understand. Often, they appear in the moment.

Remember how sullen the Stadium was after the top of the first inning of the wild-card game? Down 3-0, the kid ace, Luis Severino, chased after a third of an inning? Then Brett Gardner took ball one from Ervin Santana. Honestly, that’s all it took. Ball one. At 1-and-0, it was like someone disengaged the mute button because the fans not only believed, they knew. They knew. Gardner walked. Two batters later it was 3-3. Three hours after that, the Yankees were bound for Cleveland.

Remember the nervous hum that accompanied Game 3 of the ALDS, Masahiro Tanaka and Carlos Carrasco matching zeroes, the Yankees with no margin for error? Then suddenly Francisco Lindor launched a ball toward right field, sure to give the Tribe a 2-0 lead, only Aaron Judge happens to be 6foot-7, and he stretched, and he leapt, brought it back, and in that moment the Stadium knew. It knew. A few innings later Greg Bird ruined an Andrew Miller slider. A few days after that the Yankees were bound for Houston.

Remember Monday night, Game 3 of the ALCS, the Yankees with their familiar 0-2 view, two runs scored in the series’ first 19 2/3 innings? Remember thinking: they’d better beat Charlie Morton, or else? And suddenly there were two outs and two on the second, and Morton threw the nastiest damned slider you ever saw, tilting toward the outside corner, knees, and sonofagun if Todd Frazier — bat and bottom pulling in opposite directions like a tug-o-war — flicked that sucker over the rightfield fence. And in that moment, you knew. You knew. The final chapter hasn’t been written yet. It will. They have to figure out Justin Verlander, but they just figured out Dallas Keuchel, which seemed less likely than Charlie Brown ever getting Lucy to hold the ball long enough for him to make a 63-yard field goal. There are contingencies and backups, and Game 7 looming if they need it. They’ll worry about other stuff when they need to worry about other stuff. For now there is only this game.

One game.