When you’re facing an uphill climb to get into the playoffs, it doesn’t take long for it to become late in the season.
Joe Girardi admitted so after the Yankees held on for a 2-1 win over the Tigers on Monday — and he also did it during the game, when he went to David Robertson for a third straight day for the first time in nearly two years.
The move paid off, as Robertson nailed down the Yankees’ third consecutive victory with a perfect ninth as they moved within a game of the Blue Jays for the second wild-card spot.
“When you’re a few games back, this is the time of year you try to make a push,” Robertson said. “We’ve added some players to the lineup and I think it’s really helped. The team has changed and evolved a little bit. We’ve got a good team. Now we’ll try to tear off a run.”
Brandon McCarthy has been one of those valuable pickups and he won again, besting Max Scherzer — the first of three Cy Young Award winners the Tigers are going to send to the mound in this series.
McCarthy limited the dangerous Tigers lineup to one unearned run over 5 ²/₃ innings — needing 116 pitches to get that far, but the Yankees weren’t complaining.
“He’s been huge,” Joe Girardi said of McCarthy’s five outings since joining the Yankees after a trade from Arizona. “He’s come over here pitched about as well as you could.”
McCarthy — 4-0 with a 2.08 ERA in five starts after struggling mightily with the Diamondbacks — wasn’t alone on Monday, as four relievers combined for 3 ¹/₃ scoreless innings to preserve the win.
It was far from easy, as the Tigers’ defense repeatedly robbed the Yankees of hits and runs — most notably with Ezequiel Carrera’s sensational diving catch of Jacoby Ellsbury’s fly ball to the warning track in center with the bases loaded in the third inning.
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“I haven’t seen a better play made all year,” Ellsbury said. “It probably saved three runs. Early in the game, a play like that changes things.”
Ellsbury’s blast became a sacrifice fly that gave the Yankees a 1-0 lead and the Yankees managed to scratch across another run on Brian McCann’s two-out single later in the inning.
Chase Headley’s attempt to extend the lead was dashed by another diving play, this time by Ian Kinsler at second.
McCarthy also repeatedly escaped trouble, like when he fanned Alex Avila and Eugenio Suarez after loading the bases with one out in the second.
And even when McCarthy surrendered an unearned run in the fifth, he limited the damage by getting Miguel Cabrera to ground out to end the inning with Kinsler representing the tying run at second.
Matt Thornton protected the one-run lead in the sixth when he got Avila to ground out to first, where Chase Headley was forced to play just his third game because Mark Teixeira was scratched because of light-headedness.
In the seventh, Adam Warren was the next to face Cabrera with the tying run in scoring position and he got the slugger to ground out on a slow comebacker to end the inning.
Shawn Kelley and Robertson provided drama-free innings of relief to finish the game, the 15th straight game the Yankees have played that has been decided by two runs or less, extending the franchise record, according to the Sports Elias Bureau.
“That’s just the way it’s going right now,” said Robertson, who will almost certainly be unavailable Tuesday. “If we’ve got to win by one run every time, we’ll win by one run.”
And while some of their recent games may have had a postseason feel to them, Robertson wasn’t ready to look that far ahead when asked if the Yankees are well-built for October.
“I think so,” the closer said. “But let’s get to the playoffs first and then we can worry about that.”