It was a game the Yankees deemed they had to have, so they were going to do whatever they could to run it down.
Down 2-0 in Minnesota in the seventh inning on Wednesday, Aaron Boone tapped the gas pedal. With runners on second and third in a game that was a swing away from getting out of reach, he brought in Brent Headrick for the 77th time this season, which trails only Toronto’s Mason Fluharty for most appearances in the majors. Headrick escaped — and then returned to the mound for the eighth, now up to 75 ⅔ innings on the year.
That effort appeared to pay off in the ninth, when Anthony Volpe’s two-run double tied it, and led to more burn on the Yankees tires: Boone went to Paul Blackburn (81 ⅔ innings and counting in his first full season as a reliever) for a scoreless bottom of the ninth, and then David Bednar (66 ⅓ innings, plus another four pressure-packed frames during the World Baseball Classic) for the 10th — and, as neither team could separate itself, the 11th, too. So with less than two weeks before the start of the postseason, Bednar added 26 more pitches to his odometer.
Boone’s management was understandable: The Yankees are trying to keep pace with the Rays and can speak from experience how significant winning the division and clinching the first-round bye can be.
