And so the Yankees headed into the final game of three against the Chicago White Sox. Carlos Rodon would start for New York and Davis Martin was on the mound for the Chicago team.

Needing to finish ahead of Toronto to clinch a bye through the first round of the playoffs as well as the need to clinch to take the honours of winning the American League East – which these days is peculiarly not essential but is more than nice to record.

Chase Meidroth was once nore leading off the batting line-up for the White Sox, and he offered the Yankees encouragement as he hit a flyout which did not challenge Aaron Judge in rightfield. This was followed by Curtis Mead hitting a lineout which Anthony Volpe took cleanly. The White Sox first moment of possibility saw Colson Montgomery hit a single on a ground ball to centerfield but Edgar Quero, then, struck out swinging to end the top of the first. Rodon was looking comfortable.

The Yankees were first to be able to put a run on the scoreboard and it came as soon as the first inning. Trent Grisham hit a single to centerfield and was then advanced to third when Judge hit a a double to leftfield. Cody Bellinger was walked and the bases were loaded with nobody out.

Things did not continue quite so smoothly but the Yankees had done enough. When Ben Rice hit a ground ball, it was pitcher Martin who chased it down the first base line and was able to tag Rice out, but in the meantime all three runners advanced one base. As Grisham crossed home plate, the Yankees put the first run on the board. 1-0

Giancarlo Stanton struck out swinging and Jazz Chisholm Jr hit a grounder directly to Miguel Vargas on first. The runners on second and third were left stranded but the Yankees already had the edge in the scoring.

But that didn’t mean that the White Sox were about to lie down. Vargas hit a single to leftfield and then Rodon hit Kyle Teel with a pitched ball. Next was Michael A. Taylor who hit a bunt to third baseman Ryan McMahon. He threw it over to Chisholm, but there was no clean defense here and all of a sudden the bases were loaded. It was to be a sacrifice fly from Corey Julks to Grisham which was enough to score Vargas and tie the score at 1-1.

The White Sox time at bat ended with Derek Hill striking out swinging.

The Yankees started well in their half of the second too. Austin Wells hit a grounder in the direction of rightfielder Taylor which was enough to take him to first. Volpe hit a fly out to centerfield , but McMahon followed with another groundball – this time to Montgomery at short – which gave him the second single of the inning and moved Wells to second. A 3-2 groundout for Grisham gave the fielding team enough to deal with and to allow the runners to advance to second and third. Waiting on deck was Judge and the White Sox did not vacilate for long before giving the instruction to Martin that he should intentionally walk the Yankees’ rightfielderi in order to take Bellinger who is not an easy option but perhaps better than Judge to take a risk on. And indeed they chose correctly with Bellinger hitting into a ground out.

The White Sox offered little in the third. Meidroth hit a line out to Grisham. Mead popped up to Chisholm. Montgomery hit a line out to Rice. And indeed it was much the same for the Yankees with Rice hitting into a 4-3 groundout which was followed by the second strikeout of the game for Giancarlo Stanto. There was also a strikeout for Chisholm who swung wildly.

The game took an unlikely turn in the top of the 4th as the White Sox seemed to be taking control. It didn’t look like anything was going to happen when Quero grounded out, but the first chink in Rodon’s resolute performance appeared when he walked Vargas. Still all seemed A-OK when he bounced back to get Teel to strike out swinging and all there was on the horizon was Taylor, who was one of the weakest – if not the weakest – batter in the White Sox line-up. But it doesn’t do to draw conclusions until all the evidence is in and Taylor hit his 9th homer of the season over the wall in right centerfield. 3-1.

Julks hit a deep flyball in the direction of Grisham and again there were three outs.

And still the Yankees – now in arrears – had nothing to offer. They found a variety of ways to get out, but nobody showed any sign of getting on base. Wells hit a lineout, Volpe hit a groundout. McMahon struck out swinging.

At least Chicago also slowed down in the fifth. The Yankees had Hill hit into a 6-3 groundout, followed by Meidroth lining out to Bellinger and Mead striking out swinging.

And not building on their momentum was going to prove their undoing. Grisham was called out on strikes but then everything began to change. Judge hit a ground ball into left which gave him a single and then Bellinger hit a second consecutive single but this time to the opposite field.

With two on, the White Sox decided it was time to make a change and their call to the bullpen saw Tyler Gilbert making his way to the mound. But he couldn’t stem the flow of the way things were going as he walked Ben Rice to load the bases.

And then suddenly the struggling Stanton came to life, hitting a three run double to left field. Julks couldn’t gather up the hit and Judge, Bellinger and Rice all scored. 4-3 to New York.

The time at-bat ended with Chisholm grounding out and Wells striking out swinging.

For a moment. it looked like there was hope for the Chicago team to get it back to level terms when Montgomery hit a sharp fly ball into the outfield. However, the Yankees were able to undo this, when a hit toward shortstop Volpe mean that the Yankees could remove Montgomery on the fielder’s choice, choosing to allow the batter, Quero to arrive at first. Then with one out, Vargas was out on a liner to Grisham and Teel struck out swinging.

Another strikeout came when Volpe was out swinging, but the advantage was lost when Gilbert hit McMahon with pitched ball and then allowed him to advance to second on a wild pitch.

Grisham couldn’t build on this and lined out to centerfield and then the White Sox decided to see if the same trick would work twice and decided to put Judge on the vacant first base. They then (no so intentionally) walked Bellinger but a fly ball hit from Rice to Julks ended the bottom of the 6th anyway.

There were then two substitutions. One predictable, one not so. The Yankees brought in relief pitcher, Luke Weaver, and in turn the White Sox replaced home run hero Michael A. Tayor with Brooks Baldwin.

Baldwin could not match Taylor’s starring role and simply hit a flyout to rightfield which Judge gathered easily. Another pinch-hitter came in with Will Robertson replacing Julks. Again, a flyout from him merely added to the number of outs that Chicago were gathering. The last member of the White Sox outfield. Hill ended the inning with a ground out towards Volpe who completed the play by throwing over to Rice.

The two pinch hitters took over in right and left field respectively. The third White Sox pitcher, Mike Vasil entered the game in the bottom of the 7th.

Vasil was giving Stanton a little more respect than he received when he hit his double, and in doing so walked him, and when he reached first he was replaced by Jasson Dominguez.

The Yankees half of the inning didn’t start too brightly with Chisholm grounding out to first. However, this did allow Dominguez to move up to second.

Wells, who is a prime clutch-hitter, then hit a hefty double into centerfield. This allowed Dominguez to score and the game to move to 5-3.

There were more chances to come but nothing could come of them, The second out was Volpe popping out into foul territory with Teel taking the pop out.

Vasil then began to make himself look foolish. First, he walked McMahon before being caught in a balk which moved the runners up to second and third. However, he got out of the sticky situation by getting Grisham to strike out swinging.

Dominguez remained in the game as designated hitter, and Weaver who had pitched well to this point was replaced by Devin Williams who everybody says is much improved. I guess it depends how bad you think he was before.

He did, however, strikeout both Meidroth and Mead as their errant swings couldn’t make contact. And just when Williams looked like he was going to settle things down, he then walked Montgomery and gave up a single to Quero. The White Sox then brought on pinch runner Korey Lee for Quero in the hope of building something out of ths situation. It was then that Vargas hit a line out into left field which Bellinger handled confidently and brought the top of the 8th to a close.

The pinch runner, Lee became the designated hitter and this time the Chicago pitcher decided to take the bit between his teeth and give Judge a time at bat. And indeed, Judge hit a grounder back to Vasil for the first out. Chicago then replaced Vasil with Cam Booser. Booser got Bellinger to flyout into centerfield and the Yankees in an attempt to invigorate matters brought in Paul Goldschmidt for Rice. Goldschmidt could only hit into foul territory down the rightfield when his attempt at a hit was cleanly swallowed by the glove of Baldwin.

One of the great tour-de-force’s of the second half of the Yankees’ season has been David Bednar.

This game was no exception. With Paul Goldschmidt remaining in the game at first base, Bednar polished everything off. He got Teel to ground out in the direction of McMahon and then Baldwin to also hit a grounder toward Volpe for the second out.

We all then settled back to watch a picher-batter match-up between the closer and Will Robertson. Frankly, it didn’t amount to much and Robertson struck out swinging.. This was Bednar’s 26th save of the season.

However, over in Toronto, the Blue Jays beat the Boston Red Sox 6-1. The Yankees had swept Chicago and there is nothing much more then that you can do. The reality is that if the Blue Jays continue to win, the tiebreak is with them and the Yankees will need to play in the first round of the playoffs.

Next in town to face the 91-68 Yankees are the Baltimore Orioles.