Everyone saw how this was going to go. Are you kidding? No matter how many times you watch “The Sting,” you know how it ends, you know Redford’s going to get up from the floor smiling and Shaw is going to be hustled up the stairs with his suitcase a half-mill light in cash. 

Every. Single. Time. 

So it made perfect sense that the Yankees would load the bases in the ninth inning Thursday night, trailing 4-3, one out. Michael Fulmer threw two balls to Gleyber Torres and there wasn’t a soul among the remnants of the 35,551 in the Stadium stands who couldn’t see what was about to happen. 

The Twins, they’d seen this script before. They knew the record — 114-39 in the previous 153 games between the two, a fair chunk of them won against long odds late in games. It really wasn’t a matter of if the Yankees would win the game, it was who the hero would be. Nobody was putting any smart money on that being Fulmer. 

But it was. Fulmer struck out Torres, induced a game-ending grounder from Isiah Kiner-Falafa, and suddenly Redford wasn’t getting up from the floor, and Shaw was getting the last laugh on Newman after all. 

“We had our shot,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said, shrugging his shoulders. 

So the Yankees will not carry a five-game winning streak into this uber-important weekend in The Bronx, three games against the Rays that can either invite them even closer into the race for the AL East crown or send them away recalibrating their playoff aspirations, focusing on the wild card. 

The Rays show up 4 ½ games back, three in the loss column, and it is likely that their foundational star, shortstop Wander Franco, will join them for the first time since July 9 after missing the last 51 games with a hamate fracture in his right wrist. The Rays would seem to have much of the momentum on their side. This is their shot. 

But it’s useful to take a step back and ponder what the Yankees did this week. Forgetting the almost comical dominance they’ve had over the Twins going back 20 years, the Twins are a good team, well in the hunt for the AL Central. These games were every bit as precious for the Twins as they were for the Yankees. More, even. 

And yet the Yankees were a whisker away from a four-game sweep, despite playing with a diminished lineup that has to be seen to be believed every night. If Billy Martin pulled that batting order out of a hat, one of his old tricks, he’d demand the hat be DFA’d. There are absences up and down the Yankees lineup, and DJ LeMahieu was the latest addition to the injured list, where he’ll tend to a painful toe. 

Boone won’t get any credit for that, of course, because so many Yankees fans are building a case for the prosecution for why he should be replaced as manager. But let it be remembered that these are precisely the stretches when he is at his most valuable. Every season of his tenure with the Yankees they’ve experienced extended periods of battering and bruising. And always survive it. 

Now, you can make the chicken-or-the-egg argument if you factor the Twins into the mix, sure, but the fact is this is what Boone does best. He may not flip over many buffet tables. He may not air out his players in public, even if doing so would be tossing a few juicy carcasses to the hungry masses. 

He simply makes sure certain seasons don’t fall apart when a lot of seasons would fall apart. If the Yankees had lost three of four to the Twins — and in retrospect it seems astonishing that didn’t happen — they’d be only 2 ½ up, one in the loss, and there’s no telling what Yankee Stadium would’ve felt like in the hour or so before Friday’s lid-lifter with the Rays. 

But they won three of four. They grinded their way through the week, and now get a crack at putting the Rays back in their place. Forget what the lead used to be; it’s 4 ¹/₂. It’s still the Rays who have to do the heavy lifting here. And thanks to a week that couldn’t have gone much better, it’s the Yankees holding the hammer. Now all they have to do is wield it.