NEW YORK _ It's not about the Red Sox, Brian Cashman said Friday. Not yet, and not if the Yankees want a real shot at making it deep enough into October for it to actually be about the Red Sox.
In the final games of the regular season, the Yankees will go all-out to earn home-field advantage for the wild-card game, Cashman said. They also will not consider pitching matchups against the Red Sox in the ALDS at the expense of throwing their best available starter in the wild-card round.
"Yes, yes and yes," Cashman said when asked if he'd be willing to throw Luis Severino or Masahiro Tanaka or J.A. Happ, or whoever is pitching the best, in the final days of the season if it means clinching home-field advantage in the wild-card game, most likely against the Athletics.
The season, he added, ends with trips to Tampa and Boston, "so you'd rather have the short trip back to New York and then you're dreaming big things, and if you can find a way to get past that cage match, then you've got a quick trip thereafter.
"You're just making life harder for yourselves if you have to do the alternative (play in Oakland). We're fighting for a wild card and hopefully a wild card with home field."
The Yankees entered Friday with a 1{-game lead over Oakland, plus the tiebreaker advantage over the A's.
Cashman twice used the expression "cage match" to describe the wild-card game, underlining the survival aspect over and over. And that means, he said, they can't look at the heavyweight lining up to face the wild-card winner in Boston.
"We're going to pick the best person to try to win that game," he said. "We will pick whoever is best qualified at that time, regardless of that other series."
This can translate to a number of variables. For instance, it could indicate that Happ's longtime success against the Red Sox won't preclude him from starting the wild-card game. If Severino, who has won 18 games and showed definitive signs of returning to form earlier this week, is the best option for that game, the Yankees won't sit him just for the chance to have him face the Red Sox twice in the next series.
"Everything gets thrown out the door," he said. "It's all hands on deck for that last game, to find a way to survive it."
In many ways, Cashman clarified the conclusion that Aaron Boone has been working on for a few days. At first, Boone said the ALDS would have some bearing on whom the Yankees will pitch in the wild-card game. By Friday afternoon, he said the priority was surviving the one game. After all, you can't win a series you don't play in.
Additionally, despite resting the bulk of his sluggers on Friday night against the Orioles _ Giancarlo Stanton, Miguel Andujar and Gary Sanchez were not in the starting lineup _ Boone underlined that this is simply a way to keep them fresh for a stretch run and a fight for home-field advantage.
The Yankees' decision-makers are getting "everyone's thoughts, opinions, where we're at, what we're thinking at this point," Boone said. "That'll be an ongoing conversation into the final days of the season as we get closer to that. We'll hopefully, through that dialogue and conversations, we'll come up with the best plan possible to win that game."
After that, they can figure out a way to win 11 more after that.
