YANKS CLOSE IN ON WILD-CARD SPOT
BEAT TWINS FOR SIX-GAME BULGE
Barring a strange ending to a long trip the Yankees aren’t going to win the AL East. That will go to the Red Sox and leave the Yankees with the first AL wild-card ticket and a home date against whatever team cops the second. Yet, and rightfully so, the Yankees haven’t deleted catching the AL East leaders from their thought process because of the way they have been playing. “We have [11] games left and are three games back and kind of have our backs against the wall,’’ Brett Gardner said after the Yankees topped the Twins, 5-2, Tuesday night in front of a Yankee Stadium crowd of 30,218 for their 13th win 17 games. “We have been playing really good baseball and we need to continue to do it, keep the pressure on them and make them keep winning.’’ For a second straight night the Red Sox beat the Orioles in extra innings and maintained a threegame lead over the Yankees, who are six games up on the Twins in the race for the first wild-card spot lead.
Three back with 11 games remaining would be tough even if the Yankees had more dates with the Red Sox which isn’t the case.
“It stinks man, it’s terrible,” Todd Frazier said. “But that’s what happens when you need help, sometimes you don’t get it. We’re focused on winning. I think we got 11 games left.
“Find a way to ride this out and into the playoffs. It’s tough to watch. You can’t rely on [help] sometimes. I scoreboard watch all the time. I saw the final, 1-0 and to see it was on a wild pitch, it’s like, ‘Oh, man.’ ”
By taking the first two of a three-game series from the Twins the Yankees won a sixth straight series, but have reduced the Red Sox’s lead by just 1½ games since Aug. 31.
After getting out of a basesloaded, no-out jam in the first by allowing only a run CC Sabathia went six innings for the victory and is 12-5. He allowed two runs, six hits, walked one and fanned five. With 2,836 career strikeouts, Sabathia is 18th on the all-time list and third on the all-time list of lefties with Randy Johnson and Steve Carlton ahead of him.
“It’s about winning every game,’’ said Sabathia, who gave up a solo homer to Max Kepler in the second inning and nothing af- ter. He ended the six-inning gig by getting Eddie Rosario on a fly ball that chased Gardner to the warning track with the bases loaded. “[The Red Sox] have been playing good, too.’’
After Chad Green worked a scoreless seventh and David Robertson struck out three in the eighth, Joe Girardi turned to Aroldis Chapman for the ninth and he posted his 20th save.
For the second straight game Gardner had three hits and added two RBIs to a lineup that stranded at least one runner in every inning and finished with 14 men left on base.
“We are playing really good baseball and that needs to continue,’’ Gardner said. “Every game is very important.’’
Starlin Castro contributed three hits and an RBI single in the sixth that stretched the Yankees’ lead to 5-2.
“I am being more aggressive and at the same time swinging at strikes,’’ said Castro, who started the game in a 5-for-33 (.152) slide and singled in the fifth, sixth and seventh.
Though it would take a strange series of events for the Yankees to catch the Red Sox, it would be more of a shock if they don’t play host to the wild-card game on Oct. 3 which is where they are headed even if they refuse to admit it until it’s the truth.