Sabathia ejected,yanks rout Rays, near home field vs A’s

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — CC Sabathia protected his teammates, not his wallet.

The 38-year-old lefthander got his 246th win and moved the New York Yankees closer to hosting next week’s AL wild-card game but may have cost himself a $500,000 bonus.

Sabathia was ejected from Thursday’s 12-1 win over the Tampa Bay Rays in the sixth inning for hitting Jesus Sucre on a leg in retaliation for Tampa Bay reliever Andrew Kittredge throwing a pitch behind Austin Romine.

Making his final regular-season start, Sabathia had thrown 55 pitches over five innings to raise his season innings total to 153 — two shy of a $500,000 performance bonus in his contract.

“I don’t really make decisions based on money, I guess,” Sabathia said. “I just felt like it was the right thing to do.”

Yankees manager Aaron Boone didn’t rule out Sabathia (9-7) getting into a game this weekend in Boston.

“That’s definitely above my pay grade,” Boone said when asked whether New York should still pay the bonus.

New York (98-61) ensured its winningest season since going 103-59 en route to the 2009 World Series title and moved two games ahead of Oakland (96-63) for hosting the Oct. 3 wild-card game. The Yankees hold the tiebreaker, which means one more Yankees win or Athletics loss ensures the winner-take-all game would be in the Bronx. The wild-card winner advances to a Division Series against AL East champion Boston.

“We know what’s at stake, and we took a good step toward it,” Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton said after homering twice to raise his season total to 37.

Miguel Andujar and Luke Voit also went deep for the Yankees. New York’s 260 homers tied the 2005 Texas Rangers for the second-most in major league history, four behind the 1997 Seattle Mariners.