SEATTLE — The most pressing item on the Yankees’ calendar last October was an organizational deep dive.
This year, they can officially clear their schedules for playoff baseball.
There are bigger and better goals on their agenda, but the Yankees took care of the first order of business on Wednesday night by clinching a postseason berth with a 2-1, 10-inning win over the Mariners at T-Mobile Park.
The champagne celebration was temporarily delayed after Clay Holmes gave up a game-tying home run to Justin Turner in the eighth inning.
But Anthony Rizzo, who had two of the Yankees’ three hits and drove in both of their runs on the night, led off the 10th by ripping a double to right field to score automatic runner Jasson Dominguez from second base.
Ian Hamilton then closed it out in the bottom of the inning with some help from a bizarre double play.
Cal Raleigh had led off with a single to put runners on the corners before Hamilton got Randy Arozarena to strike out.
But as he did, Arozarena’s bat went flying down the third-base line, with Julio Rodriguez dancing out of the way to avoid it.
That allowed Austin Wells a chance to throw down to third, where he picked off Rodriguez for the second out.
Hamilton then struck out Turner to end it.
After getting left out of last year’s dance following a miserable 82-80 season, the Yankees (89-63) planned on celebrating Wednesday’s accomplishment and then turning their attention to the division.
With their ninth win in the last 12 games, they opened up their AL East lead over the Orioles to a season-high five games on Wednesday night with 10 games to play, trimming their magic number to clinch the division to six games.
“Anytime you get in, I think it’s important to appreciate that,” manager Aaron Boone said before the game. “The season is a gauntlet, it’s long, it’s a grind. Last year we didn’t make the playoffs, so maybe that even gives you a heightened, more appreciation for an opportunity to get into the dance. Hopefully we get there. We’ll appreciate every step that hopefully we continue to take.”
The Yankees have gotten here thanks in large part to the superstar tandem of Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, who have gone back and forth in their historic feats all season.
But they have also found different ways to win often enough, like they did on Wednesday night.
Nestor Cortes continued a strong stretch by tossing six scoreless innings, which looked like it might be enough to have Rizzo’s RBI single in the second inning hold up.
But Holmes hung a slider down the middle with one out in the eighth inning and Turner did not miss it, crushing a solo home run inside the left-field foul pole to tie the game 1-1.
It marked Holmes’ 13th blown save of the season, extending his major league lead.
Two weeks removed from losing his job as the outright closer, Holmes had entered in the seventh inning with two outs and the tying run on second base.
He walked Rodriguez — hurt by a pair of questionable calls from home plate umpire Jim Wolf — but hung on by getting Raleigh to fly out to end the threat.
Holmes then struck out Arozarena for the first out of the eighth inning before Turner made his mark.
Boone then brought in Luke Weaver, who struck out four across 1 ²/₃ innings to send the game to extras.
Cortes, who is trying to make his case for a spot in the playoff rotation, has now pitched to a 1.58 ERA over his last six outings — one of which was a long relief outing as the Yankees put him in the bullpen one turn through the rotation.
The Yankees took a 1-0 lead in the second inning thanks to Dominguez making things happen.
The center fielder walked, stole second and took third on catcher Raleigh’s errant throw, setting him up to score on Rizzo’s line-drive single to right field.