BOSTON — Should the Yankees treat the last week of their regular season like the postseason?
They should if home-field advantage is at stake. And my sense is that they will do that, within reason, in such a scenario.
With home runs at an all-time high, you can argue that it never has been more important to own last licks. So the Yankees shouldn’t treat that privilege like a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. They should exert some effort to take it.
After losing their series opener to the Red Sox on Friday night, 6-1, the Yankees own a 92-50 record and are tied with the Astros (92-50); Houston owns the tiebreaker over the Yankees thanks to its 4-3 season-series advantage. The Dodgers are also 92-50, and even the Braves (88-54) and Twins (87-54) lurked close enough to keep it interesting and keep everyone else honest.
While I’m not advocating for the Yankees to blow out their engines in the pursuit of securing as many October home games as possible — for instance, I wouldn’t use a reliever four straight days — merit exists for pushing Zack Britton, Aroldis Chapman, Tommy Kahnle or Adam Ottavino a little bit if the situation called for it.
And we are talking about the relievers here. The Yankees’ position-playing corps runs so ridiculously deep that they can rest multiple regulars and still offensively outperform their opponents, or have you not paid attention to what has transpired this season? The starting pitchers will do what they do; their pitch counts get controlled not only for health preservation reasons, but for strategic ones, too.
The top relievers, though, see their workloads controlled primarily so they won’t run out of gas before the playoffs. As The Post’s Joel Sherman recently pointed out, the Yankees are the only team in the major leagues not to have worked a pitcher for three straight days.
“I don’t think they want to push guys to a certain point in appearances,” Britton said Friday. “I think if you have to sacrifice a game or two here and there, hopefully it doesn’t bite you for home field. They’re thinking if we can stay healthy regardless of home field, we’re going to be in a good spot.”
Much truth can be found in Britton’s assessment. Of the Yankees’ big four bullpenners, only Kahnle is likely to set a career high for regular-season appearances; his 64 games are approaching the 69 he totaled in 2017 for the White Sox and Yankees.
Aaron Boone, however, acknowledged Friday that he’s open to deploying a reliever a third straight day this month — two such opportunities will exist in the postseason, ALCS Games 3 through 5 and World Series Games 3 through 5 — and that home-field advantage could factor into that decision.
This era of the super teams (the flip side of all the tanking) has seen clubs soar most of all on the strength of their home play. The Yankees own a 53-22 record, a .707 winning percentage in The Bronx, and that actually puts them behind the Astros’ 53-17 (.757) and the Dodgers’ 55-19 (.743).
Let’s say it’s Sept. 29, the last day of the regular season, and the Yankees are playing the Rangers at Globe Life Park in Arlington, Texas. With a win, they would get the top seed, be it the AL or overall. One of their top four relievers has pitched the prior two days, and he is needed again.
As long as the pitcher feels up to this task, the Yankees should go to him, knowing that the AL Division Series won’t start until Oct. 4. There will be time to rest before and after. And the Yankees will rest easier in their own beds and their own ballpark.
