ST. LOUIS — The good news for the Yankees is that they do not award wins on style points.
So while none of their three wins this weekend were overly easy on the eyes, they counted as wins all the same at a time when the Yankees desperately need to stack them up.
The Yankees broke a tie game in the top of the ninth by scoring four runs on only one hit, lifting them to an 8-4 win over the Cardinals that finished off a sweep at Busch Stadium.
With the help of two errors by Cardinals second baseman Thomas Saggese, the Yankees (67-57) rallied for their fifth win in the past six games.
Cody Bellinger reaches on a fielding error during the Yankees’ Aug. 17 win.AP
The Blue Jays and Red Sox each lost on Sunday, allowing the Yankees to pick up a game in the division race.
They trail Toronto by 5 ¹/₂ games and Boston by a half-game entering Monday’s off-day.
“We’ve been saying it all year: When we play like we’re supposed to play, these are the results you’re going to get,” said Will Warren, who allowed three runs (one earned) over 4 ²/₃ innings. “We’ve been staying with the process. We haven’t strayed from anything we’ve done. Just head down, keep going and we’re starting to win again.”
The back-to-back series wins came against two struggling opponents in the Twins and Cardinals (61-64), but the Yankees lost enough games to bad teams during their two-month skid to hope they are beginning to put that in their rearview mirror.
“We’ve got a long way to go in this,” manager Aaron Boone said. “It’s always really good, obviously, getting the sweep heading into an off-day. But you’ve got to keep going. We’re not a finished product yet. We know we’re capable of a lot, but we’ve got a ways to go.”
To win the finale, the Yankees took advantage of putting the ball in play, creating the kind of inning that too many opponents have had against them this summer.
José Caballero, whose impact the Yankees benefitted from all weekend, led off the top of the ninth with a high chopper to second base, with his speed forcing Saggese to make a bad throw to first.
Caballero ended up on second and then took third on the next pitch that went to the backstop.
Cardinals lefty JoJo Romero got the first out before Giancarlo Stanton pinch hit for Ben Rice.
Anthony Volpe scores during the Yankees’ Aug. 17 win.AP
Stanton had not played all weekend because of lingering soreness from playing the outfield earlier in the week and the DH spot being tied up by Aaron Judge.
But the veteran hit a couple of bullets foul before settling for a walk and being pinch run for at first.
Romero threw two balls to Judge and then intentionally walked him to load the bases for Cody Bellinger, who delivered a ground ball that ate up Saggese and trickled into right field, scoring a pair of runs.
Jazz Chisholm Jr. followed with a fielder’s choice that made it 7-4 before Paul Goldschmidt doubled him home for an insurance run.
Will Warren throws a pitch during the Yankees’ Aug. 17 win.IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
The value of putting the ball in play there in the end and taking advantage of mistakes,” Boone said.
Luke Weaver then threw seven pitches in the bottom of the ninth — after recording the last two outs of the eighth — to finish it off.
The Yankees did not have a hit through the first three innings against Miles Mikolas, but Goldschmidt — who went 3-for-5 in his first game since spraining his right knee on Tuesday — doubled with one out in the fourth.
Jasson Domínguez, Ryan McMahon and Caballero each followed with singles to turn a scoreless game into a 3-0 lead in a span of four pitches.
JoJo Romero reacts during the Cardinals’ loss to the Yankees on Aug. 17.AP
Warren, whose two unearned runs came after a fielding error by the typically sure-handed McMahon, left a 3-3 game in the fifth inning with the go-ahead run at third.
But Devin Williams stranded him there with a strikeout of Jordan Walker.
The Cardinals regained the lead in the sixth inning when Yohel Pozo crushed a home run off Camilo Doval, but Bellinger tied it back up in the seventh on a sacrifice fly before winning it in the ninth.
Now the Yankees will try to make sure the feel-good week serves as a springboard for the rest of the season instead of being a mirage.
“These last five or six weeks will tell,” Goldschmidt said. “Obviously this was a good week for us to win five out of six games, but there’s a lot of tough opponents coming up. We’ll try to play well and keep going. We definitely have a chance. Just try to play well.”
