If this keeps up, the Yankees may ask to join the National League next season.
They’ve now won 10 straight — all against NL East teams, after last night’s 6-2 victory over the Braves in The Bronx as Derek Jeter delivered the clutch hit to go along with CC Sabathia’s excellence.
“It seems like we’re just on repeat here for every game for the last couple of weeks,” Jeter said. “It’s just one of those waves. You ride it as long as you can.”
The streak is the longest the Yankees have had since May 2005 — when they also won 10 in a row.
And added to another terrific pitching performance, they even managed to go 3-for-7 with runners in scoring position — a relative explosion considering their trouble this season.
None of those clutch hits was more important than Jeter’s fifth-inning single with the bases loaded that gave the Yankees a 3-2 lead.
After Atlanta starter Mike Minor, who baffled the Yankees in his previous outing, held them hitless last night for four innings, Alex Rodriguez lead off the fifth with a single and Robinson Cano followed with a walk.
Russell Martin’s double down the left field line scored their first run and, after Jayson Nix walked to load the bases and Chris Stewart popped out, Jeter came up to try to extend the inning.
“You always feel if you keep it close, you’ve got a good chance,” Sabathia said. “And when Derek comes up, you expect him to do it. He’s been in that spot so many times and come through.”
But like most of his teammates, his success in those situations this season has been spotty at best.
After getting the count to 3-2, Jeter slapped a fastball up the middle to score Cano and Martin.
With the Yankees seemingly unbeatable against the National League, manager Joe Girardi wasn’t shocked by his team’s latest comeback.
“You figure we’re going to find a way,” Girardi said.
Even when the outlook hasn’t been good in some games.
“This is not easy to do,” Girardi said. “And some of them have looked kind of bleak at times.”
Like the game last Tuesday against the Braves, when Minor held the Yankees to one run over 7 1/3 innings but a grand slam by Alex Rodriguez and a two-run shot by Nick Swisher provided another victory.
They needed no such dramatics last night. That was largely due to Sabathia, who pitched his first complete game of the season, striking out 10 and walking just one while improving to 9-3.
After Michael Bourn’s triple to start the game, the lefty didn’t have much difficulty with Atlanta. He surrendered another run in the fifth, but faced just one batter over the minimum after that.
Mark Teixeira and Cano added homers and Jeter also gave Sabathia an insurance run with another base hit up the middle in the seventh, which knocked in Chris Stewart.
And with five more games against the National League before the Indians come to town next week, the Yankees will try to keep the dominance going.
“You don’t try to think too much about it,” Martin said of the streak. “The attitude is the same every day.”
But they’re not taking it for granted.
“It’s very difficult, especially with the teams we’ve been playing,” Jeter said. “You don’t see too many teams do it.”