At this point, the Yankees should start figuring out what kind of share Ryan Dempster gets if they make the playoffs.
The Yankees won their fifth straight yesterday, a 5-3 victory over the Blue Jays. The turnaround all started when Dempster drilled Alex Rodriguez with a pitch Sunday night, sparking the start of the streak.
Everything started with Dempster — something even his Red Sox teammate David Ortiz acknowledged.
“We’ve got Tampa right on our heels and that pitch woke up a monster in the Yankees’ team at that moment,” the Boston slugger told USA Today. “You’re talking about a good team that you can’t wake up.”
Consider the Yankees awake — and now just 3 ½ games out of the second wild card.
Still, emotion will only get a team so far, and yesterday they didn’t need anyone beaned to get going.
Instead, after the start of the game was delayed by rain for 3:32, they got another good start out of Andy Pettitte (9-9) — who won consecutive outings for the first time since July 6 and 11.
He eventually got help from a lineup that didn’t produce a baserunner until Ichiro Suzuki’s grounder bounced off third base and into left field for a double to start the fourth.
The Yankees fell behind 1-0, but got two runs in the bottom of the fifth to take the lead and three more an inning later to build a cushion.
Pettitte has actually thrown considerably better over his last seven starts than much of June and July.
Yesterday, he was saved a run when Rodriguez made a nice charging play on Brett Lawrie’s grounder with Rajai Davis at third.
In the fifth, Pettitte surrendered a leadoff homer to J.P. Arencibia and then loaded the bases with one out before Rodriguez snared Davis’ hard grounder and started an inning-ending double play.
The Yankees took the lead in the bottom of the inning.
After Curtis Granderson tied the game with a leadoff homer, the Yankees loaded the bases with one out, bringing up Vernon Wells.
Wells hit a fly ball to shallow center that Davis appeared to catch, but it was ruled to have landed — causing chaos on the basepaths once Davis dropped the ball before throwing it in.
Eduardo Nunez, who was at third, went back to the base before turning around and scoring. But Chris Stewart, who started the play at second, raced back since he thought the ball had been caught. Ichiro, also unsure of the call, was standing on second before he took a step back toward first, thinking he may have to head back to that base.
The umpires eventually ruled Stewart out on a fielder’s choice, allowing Nunez to score. Toronto manager John Gibbons was ejected for arguing the play.
The Yankees added three more runs in the sixth, two coming on a single by Nunez that made it 5-1.
Those runs became crucial when Shawn Kelley gave up a pair of runs in the seventh before Boone Logan fanned pinch-hitter Adam Lind with two runners on to end the inning.
Preston Claiborne, recalled from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre before the game, pitched a scoreless eighth.
That still left the ninth inning, and Mariano Rivera, who pitched in three games the previous two days, was unavailable yesterday.
David Robertson was called on to close it and retired the Blue Jays in order for his second save of the season.
dan.martin@nypost.com