NEW YORK _ How costly was one Yankees run in a Subway Series victory?
They're about to find out, while collectively holding their breath over the condition of Masahiro Tanaka.
After scoring Friday night's tying run on a sixth-inning sacrifice fly, Tanaka did not come out for the bottom half of the inning because of stiffness in both hamstrings.
In the eighth, Brett Gardner capped off a terrific all-around game with a tie-breaking, two-run home run that lifted the Yankees to a 4-1 win against the Mets.
A healthy Yankee-fan portion from a crowd of 42,961 fans gave Gardner a hearty cheer after his fifth homer of the year dropped over the right field fence.
But a good many of those fans probably also recall Chien-Ming Wang and his season-ending injury on the bases 10 years ago next week.
Tanaka will be re-evaluated Saturday according to the Yankees, who have already lost starter Jordan Montgomery to Tommy John surgery.
Playing under National League rules, without a designated hitter, Tanaka reached on a one-out fielding error by Mets first baseman Adrian Gonzalez.
That in itself was a mild victory, considering that deGrom had faced the minimum to that point, erasing a first-inning walk to Aaron Judge and a fourth-inning single by Gardner on double plays.
Tanaka advanced on an easy-to-read single to center by Gleyber Torres and moved to third on Gardner's walk.
And Tanaka scored standing up Judge's deep sacrifice fly to right, making it 1-1 and doing so without any obvious distress.
But Tanaka had extended his left foot to tag home plate, deciding not to slide _ making it a close play in actuality.
The first sign of any issue was when Jonathan Holder took the mound for the bottom of the sixth and was allowed extra time to warm up.
Tanaka flied out in his first at-bat, making good contact to center field.
His only MLB base hit came in this ballpark, during his first career MLB complete game shutout in 2014.
After yielding a leadoff home run to Brandon Nimmo, Tanaka did not give up another hit. He walked one batter and struck out eight in a 75-pitch effort, handing off to Holder, Chad Green and Dellin Betances, who each tossed a scoreless inning.
Giancarlo Stanton's bullet of a home run to left, his 15th of the year _ and 22nd in 53 career games at Citi Field _ made it 4-1. It's the highest total in the 10-year old ballpark by any visiting player.
Gardner also made two terrific catches in center field, including a grab of Jay Bruce's deep leadoff fly in the second _ racing to the warning track and slamming his back against the fence as he caught it.
Aroldis Chapman put two men on base in the ninth, and also received a visit from head athletic trainer Steve Donohue, before sewing up his 16th save.
