BREAK THROUGH; “Yankees’ got it this time”-The last two extra-inning preview of what’s to come in October

Star these last two games. Circle them. These are the kinds of circumstances you find yourself in when the calendar flips to October. Late innings. Extra innings. Make a pitch. Make a play. Win a game. Electrify a crowd.

This is how it happens in October. This is how it goes. Teams die hard. The Royals on Wednesday and the Red Sox on Thursday, they needed these games like oxygen. The Royals are trying to go from 106 losses to the playoffs. The Red Sox are trying to get hot at the right time, collect wins, tip-toe into the postseason.

These aren’t spoilers, saving their best solely to do mean things to the Yankees without any skin in the games themselves. The Yankees? Sure, they needed these games, too. They want to beat out the Orioles, avoid the play-in, get ready for a best-of-five without bothering with a best-of-three. They have a cushion. They can’t afford to play that way.

These last two nights, they didn’t. Wednesday, they tied the Royals in the bottom of the 10th, held them in the top of the 11th, then sent 2-3-4 up in the bottom. That’s a tall task for anyone. Juan Soto moved the ghost runner to third. The Royals passed Aaron Judge. And Jazz Chisholm Jr. hit one that Bobby Witt Jr. could only stop. Yankees win, 4-3.

The New York Yankees started their series with the Boston Red Sox with a 2-1 win via a 10th-inning walk-off single from Juan Soto.

1. Soto delivered his first walk-off in the pinstripes. The Bronx Bombers’ only run during the first nine innings came from a Gleyber Torres solo homer to start the bottom of the first. The Red Sox tied the game in the fifth inning and the score remained deadlocked through the rest of the game. The Red Sox failed to score in the top of the tenth inning, putting the winning run on second base to start the inning. Soto drove a 2-2 pitch up the middle that brought home the winning run. The Yankees’ second consecutive walk-off gives the team momentum at the right part of the season.

2. Nestor Cortes pitched five solid innings. The Yankees starter pitched a 1-2-3 first before getting a lead during the bottom half of the inning. He allowed a double in the second but didn’t allow a run to score. Cortes then retired the side in order in the third and pitched another scoreless inning in the fourth. The righty’s only mistake of the night came when he allowed a leadoff home run to Danny Jansen in the fifth. Cortes would strike out nine batters over five innings pitched, providing his team with a solid outing in a close ballgame.

3. The Yankees bullpen held the Red Sox scoreless. The Yankees’ four relievers combined to throw five scoreless innings in the extra-inning victory. Ian Hamilton and Tim Hill combined to pitch three no-hit innings. Tommy Kahnle allowed two runners to reach base in the ninth but the Red Sox failed to score. Kahnle recorded the first out of the tenth before Clay Holmes entered the game. He picked up the victory as the Yankees were able to pull ahead in the bottom of the tenth inning.

It’s good to develop this kind of muscle memory. It’s good to figure out a way. Not everyone is the ’27 Yankees, or the ’61 Yankees, bashing even the best teams into submission. Not everyone is the ’98 Yankees, although as dominant as those Yankees were, they sure knew how to win games just like this, maybe as well as any team ever has.

“Every day seems more and more important,” Boone had said before the game. “What I know is this: We have as good a chance as anyone to win this thing.”

He has been mocked for these starry-eyed declarations all year, lampooned for all the nights it seemed like he was going to break into song, Monty Python style: “Always look on the bright side of life …”

But you know something? He was right then. And he’s especially right now. Feel free to list the names of the teams in the American League that frighten you right now. Feel free to list the names of the teams the Yankees would surely want to avoid in the playoffs. Maybe they don’t exactly terrify anyone else, either, but that’s the point.

They have as good a chance as anyone. They are getting used to winning the games they will need to win. The old reliables came through in extras on consecutive nights. Want more? Even two of the usual suspects, who looked like they might get voted off October Island, were terrific Thursday: five strong from Nestor Cortes, then two close-out outs from Clay Holmes in the 10th.