Sabathia takes half-mil hit for team

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

The 38-year-old left-hander got his 246th win and moved the 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 Rays in the sixth inning for hitting Jesus Sucre in the leg in retaliation for Rays reliever Andrew Kittredge throwing a pitch behind Austin Romine.

Making his final regular-sea- son 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 getting into a game this weekend.

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

The Yankees (98-61) ensured their winningest season since going 103-59 en route to the 2009 World Series title and moved two games ahead of the Athletics (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-takeall game will be in the Bronx.

“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. The Yankees’ 260 homers tied the 2005 Rangers for the secondmost in major league history, four behind the 1997 Mariners.