BOSTON — Burj Khalifa in Dubai is the tallest building in the world. The Shanghai Tower in China is second.

Just because Burj Khalifa is taller doesn’t mean Shanghai Tower is not immense.

When it comes to Division Series pressure, the Red Sox are Burj Khalifa, the Yankees are the Shanghai Tower. Just because Boston has the most pressure in the best-of-five doesn’t mean the Yankees have none. They are not the just-happy-to-be-here A’s.

Their first name is New York. Their history is Ruthian. Their fan base is generally as merciful as a hungry saltwater crocodile.
Do people really believe the NEW YORK Yankees can lose a playoff series to the BOSTON Red Sox and be sent home with an ice cream cone, hug and participation trophy? Have you read a New York tabloid? Listened to a few minutes of sports-talk radio? Experienced how little tolerance Yankee fans have for a bad loss in June against Kansas City as a way to envision what (fill in October and Boston) would be like?
The AL playoffs are down to four championship-or-bust teams: Astros, Indians, Red Sox and — you bet — Yankees. There will be no hair-tousling and wait-til-next-year niceties for any of those built-to-win now clubs. For the Yankees, these are the five people facing the most succeed-or-else pressure:

1. Brian Cashman: He was the architect who turned over this team expertly and quickly. He also decided to entrust it to Aaron Boone after Joe Girardi pushed the 2017 Yanks to ALCS Game 7 in a year when there actually would have been greater leeway if the Yanks even missed the playoffs.

Cashman felt Girardi’s style and voice had lost viability in the clubhouse and with baseball operations. Boone is signed for three years, but this is at least an initial mandate if Cashman got the right man at the right time.

2. Aaron Boone: See the above mainly.

Boone was hailed for ignoring the pushback and going with a wild-card battery of Luis Severino and Gary Sanchez. But Girardi’s greatest praise came for his bullpen manipulation in last year’s AL wild-card game. Three days later he didn’t ask for a replay in Division Series Game 2 against the Indians and Girardi was treated in New York as if he had spent the day bludgeoning baby seals.

That was the Indians in a year of low expectations, just for those who think the Yanks are on scholarship when facing the Red Sox in a year in which they added the player with the largest contract (Giancarlo Stanton). So if Sanchez regresses to being a passed-ball freeway, Boone will learn goodwill this time of year lasts about as long as the sugary deliciousness of bubble gum.

3. Giancarlo Stanton: It is forgotten to time how beloved by Yankees fans Alex Rodriguez was early in the 2004 playoffs before he and the team went horribly wrong against the Red Sox. He became the face of the failure and, at least until the Yanks won it all in 2009, Rodriguez was never fully adopted or trusted by the fans. Such is life when you are the highest-paid player ever coming off an MVP and joining a team of huge expectations that went to the World Series the year before.

Stanton is the highest-paid player ever, won the MVP last year and joined a team of huge expectations that nearly went to the World Series in 2017. So that the Red Sox had 108 wins and, thus, are under huge pressure will not lessen what is expected of Stanton at all.

4. Gary Sanchez: How low have expectations dropped for Sanchez? He batted eighth in the wild-card game and went 0-for-3, yet received plaudits for playing a clean game at catcher. It was a “D” student being congratulated for getting a “C” on a test.

The Red Sox put the ball in play and are aggressive baserunners, so Sanchez is going to be challenged. If it goes poorly, he can expect a winter hearing how the Yankees should ship him out and find a way to import J.T. Realmuto from the Marlins.

5. Zach Britton: No Yankee has a greater financial imperative this postseason.

J.A. Happ, CC Sabathia, Lance Lynn and Andrew McCutchen also are looming free agents, but their offers are not going to fluctuate much by October events. Britton is different. He missed the early part of the schedule after tearing his Achilles and then went through an extended period of rediscovering his best stuff, first with the Orioles, then after the Yankees obtained him.

Britton looked like Britton throughout September, until his last outing against the Red Sox, and then gave up a two-run homer to Khris Davis in the wild-card game. When it comes to the postseason, Britton is most famous for never being summoned by then-Baltimore manager Buck Showalter in the 2016 wild-card game. But he began this Division Series having appeared in seven playoff games with a 6.35 ERA, having been scored upon in three of the last five in which he has participated.

He is going to get nice offers this offseason. Proving he can handle this cauldron could dramatically raise the bids.