Are Yankees’ struggles over after 2 months? Here’s their take on 5-1 surge

ST. LOUIS — Yankees manager Aaron Boone says he likes it when he can walk into the clubhouse after a game and not tell if his team just won or lost.

Other than the music and Jazz Chisholm sipping on a bottle of beer, the mood was tempered Sunday after the Yankees rallied late for an 8-4 victory to sweep three from the Cardinals and make it five out of six counting last week’s series win over the Twins in New York.

This last week probably was more of a relief than satisfying for the Yankees, who realize two good series doesn’t make up for damage in the standings caused while they were losing 31 of 51 games from June 13 to Aug. 10.

“Look, I think we know we’re a good team,” Boone said. “We believed that even through some of the down times and some dark moments of the season. I don’t think we’ve ever lost that confidence. So we’re capable of this. We got to go prove it though.”

They’re hoping this past week was a start to proving it, but they know they’ll probably need a long stretch of winning baseball to repeat as AL East champs, which remains their No. 1 regular-season goal.

With 38 games to play, the Yankees still are third in the division, but they gained ground on both teams ahead of them on Sunday, pulling to 5 ½ games behind the first-place Blue Jays and a half-game of the second-place Red Sox. The Yankees also stretched their lead over the Guardians for the third AL wild-card spot to 3 ½ games.

“We’ve been saying it all year, when we play like we’re supposed to play like these are the results you’re going to get,” rookie right-hander Will Warren said after his 4 2/3-inning, 3-run no-decision. “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 Yankees had some help on Sunday. After scoring a seventh-inning run to make it a 4-4 game, they scored four in the ninth on only one hit thanks to two very costly errors by Cardinals second baseman Thomas Saggese. His throwing error on Jose Caballero’s leadoff chopper gave the Yankees a runner on second base with nobody out and his boot on Cody Bellinger’s bases-loaded, one-out grounder scored two to put the Yankees ahead 6-4.

“The value of putting the ball in play there at the end and taking advantage of mistakes … it was a good way to finish it off going into the off day,” Boone said.

The Yankees have Monday off in Tampa, then play the Rays two games at their spring training ballpark before returning to New York for four big ones against the Red Sox and then three with the Nationals.

The Yankees are optimistic that their worst of times finally are over.

“When I got here, the boys were down a little bit,” said third baseman Ryan McMahon, who was traded by the Rockies to the Yankees in late July. “You could feel it. But we’re picking up play and it’s all about momentum in this game.”

The Yankees felt like they had a lot of momentum winning five in a row from July 6 to July 11, but that led into a lot more struggles, nine wins in their next 24.

“We’ve got a long way to go in this and it’s always really good getting a sweep, but we’ve got to keep going,” Boone said. “We’re not a finished product yet. We know we’re capable of a lot, but we got a ways to go.”

The Yankees still want to repeat as division champs, then get back to the World Series and this time win it.

This past week were baby steps that may or may not be the start of an extended surge after a couple months of serious underachieving.

“I hope so,” first baseman Paul Goldschmidt said after a three-hit game. “These last six weeks will tell. Obviously this is 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.”

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Randy Miller may be reached at [email protected].