MLB

Yankees feeling bulletproof after escape from L.A., Torre

LOS ANGELES — The ball hung like the moon in the jet-black night sky, and for a moment the remnants of 56,000 people at Dodger Stadium weren’t quite positive how to react.

Part of it might’ve been hypnosis: Surely Robinson Cano hadn’t just taken George Sherrill — a left-handed reliever — out of the yard to the opposite field, had he?

But, then, after what the denizens of Dodgertown had already seen across the past half-hour or so, this couldn’t have exactly been as shocking as the end of “The Sixth Sense,” right?

BOX SCORE

It was gone, of course, a two-run shot in the top of the 10th inning that capped the most remarkable comeback of the year for the Yankees, an 8-6 victory that climaxed an emotional weekend and not only closed the book on the Yankees’ reunion with Joe Torre, but also slammed it shut like the trunk of a big old Buick.

And the sound was heard all across the American League.

All across baseball.

“They’re dangerous,” Torre said, Dodgers cap pushed back on his hat, suddenly looking every hour of his 69 years and 11 months; watching the Dodgers every day will do that to a man. “You can hear all about how dangerous they are but then you’re up against them and you realize just how hard it is to close them out.”

It was the right way to go out on this weekend, a proper reminder that while saying hello and goodbye to Torre was a necessary part of closure — including the awkward pregame hug Torre shared with Alex Rodriguez last night — the Dodgers (and Torre) are barely a blip on the Yankees’ radar screen, barely a wave in their ocean.

The Yankees were staring at a 3-3 western trip against the National League, and there wouldn’t have been anything wrong with that. They were sloppy last night, kicking the ball around a bunch. The Dodgers had seized on it, handing a 6-2 lead to their closer, Jonathan Broxton, he of the Earl Campbell legs and the (normally) 99-mph fastball.

The Yankees had a red-eye to catch. For a lot of teams, that’s enough.

For the Yankees, it is called the end of the beginning rather than the beginning of the end. And so, four hits and four runs and one severe brain cramp by Dodgers first baseman James Loney later, it was tied at 6. And one swing from Robinson Cano not long after that, it was game, set, match and one of the most pleasing six-hour flights east you’ll ever enjoy.

And why not? It isn’t just that the Yankees are playing terrific baseball most days now, and it isn’t just that they made their Old-Home-Week tour of Torrewood a triumph.

Look around, and what do you see? You see a Red Sox team winning on muscle memory and little else, losing players every day, catcher Victor Martinez the latest to visit triage with a busted thumb. You see a Rays team that not long ago looked like the toast of the league, yet now can’t get out of its own way unless it’s to get in each other’s grill, as B.J. Upon and Evan Longoria did yesterday.

Unless you believe the Rangers are really as good as they’ve looked the past week beating up on the NL East, then there has to be very little that separates the Yankees from a full and enjoyable summer.

And let’s face it:

You win a game like this — a game that Torre wanted badly, which is why he pitched Broxton in a non-save situation — and you have the right to feel as bulletproof as the law allows. From now on, with Torre in their rearview mirror (and judging by how dysfunctional the Dodgers look, they won’t see them in October), the Yankees can worry about themselves, and themselves alone.

They’ll take that. They’ve already proven themselves fully capable of taking care of anyone else. Maybe everyone else.

michael.vaccaro@nypost.com