The class of the AL East still resides in Boston and Baltimore, but at least the Yankees have taken the next step to respectability.
With a 6-0 win over the Blue Jays in The Bronx, the Yankees got back to .500 (22-22) for the first time since April 14, when they were 4-4.
All it took was six straight wins, a string that began with Tuesday night’s starter, Nathan Eovaldi, on the mound in Arizona last week.
“We had a rough start to the season, but we’re playing great ball now,” Eovaldi said. “Hopefully we keep it going and get to first place.”
Even with their recent success, the Yankees remain 5 ½ games behind the Red Sox atop the division.
Still, their longest winning streak since last June has brought them a long way from the cellar-dwelling, 9-17 team they were less than three weeks ago.
“It means we’re playing well right now,” manager Joe Girardi said of his team’s turnaround. “We were struggling mightily for a while there and we seemed to find it in that stretch of 20 [games].”
They are 13-5 since May 6, better than anyone else in the American League.
Eovaldi kept things going against Toronto, tossing six shutout innings before leaving after a walk to Troy Tulowitzki to start the seventh.
Carlos Beltran drove in a run with a groundout in the first and then another with a solo homer in the fourth off Toronto starter R.A. Dickey to provide Eovaldi with some support before Dellin Betances entered in the seventh.
Kevin Pillar gave the Yankees a scare by smacking a hanging breaking ball from Betances to the track in left, where Brett Gardner hauled it in to preserve the two-run lead.
And just like the rest of the victories during this winning streak, it was grounded in starting pitching. This one resulted in their second shutout of the year.
Coming off an outing in which he retired the final 18 batters he faced, Eovaldi overcame some shaky control to keep the Blue Jays scoreless as he escaped trouble in the second and third.
He allowed a pair of base runners in both innings and was aided by Josh Donaldson’s bizarre decision to bunt with two on and no one out in the third.
“That surprised me,” said Eovaldi, who allowed just a pair of hits (and three walks), while striking out five. “Especially from him.”
The win came as the Yankees began a particularly important part of their schedule.
Tuesday began a stretch of 13 games in which they’ll leave the AL East just once. Only a makeup game in Detroit gets the Yankees out of the division in the next two weeks.
It helps that the Yankees are hosting Toronto at a good time. A recent five-game skid sent the Blue Jays to the cellar in the division.
They made sure the Blue Jays stayed there by getting to Dickey early, as Jacoby Ellsbury tripled to lead off the bottom of the first — aided by Jose Bautista, who missed a diving attempt of Ellsbury’s liner to right.
With one out and Gardner on first, Beltran narrowly beat out a double play, allowing Ellsbury to score to make it 1-0.
Beltran gave the Yankees a 2-0 lead with a homer into the second deck in right to start the bottom of the fourth. It was his 10th of the season as he continues to thrive in the DH role in Alex Rodriguez’s absence.
The Yankees added two more runs in the seventh and eighth for some insurance — which allowed Girardi to avoid using Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman for a night.
As for looking to first place, Beltran said: “Let’s just continue to play the way we’ve been playing.”