NEW YORK — The New York Yankees had awakened to the news Sunday that Brett Gardner, their starting centerfielder coming out of spring training, had broken his thumb sliding in the first inning of Saturday’s loss to the Oakland Athletics and would be lost until at least mid-August.

Then they fell behind by a run before Sunday’s game against the A’s was 12 pitches old, and by another before Sergio Mitre had gotten two outs.
Yet, by the end of the first inning, they had not only gotten the two runs back, they had raised the Athletics another two. Mitre settled down, they weathered a bad inning by Phil Coke and went on to win, 7-5. Just like that, a one-game losing streak was turned into a one-game winning streak.
They have the best record in baseball since May 8, the day Alex Rodriguez returned from the DL, and on weeks like last week and days like Sunday, they look a lot like the best team in baseball.
In fact, over the past two months, they’ve looked like the best team in baseball every day but the days they play the Red Sox.
“I’m not concerned about it at all,” Jorge Posada said. “Just look forward to the next time we face them, that’s all.”
Who can blame him? So far, the Yankees’ futility against Boston doesn’t seem to matter. Just look at the standings.
Of all the improbable things that have happened so far this baseball season, from A-Rod opting for partial-fix hip surgery to Mark Buerhle throwing a perfect game, nothing seems quite so unlikely as the Yankees going 0-for-8 against the Red Sox, by a combined score of 55-31 — and sitting atop the AL East by, now, 2› games.
Take those eight games out of the record and the Yankees’ lead swells to 6 › games. In fact, by losing those eight games, the Yankees are keeping the Red Sox in the race. Measured against the rest of baseball, there is no question which is the better team.
The Yankees have done it by fattening up on teams such as the Orioles and the Tigers, the Twins and the Athletics, the Blue Jays and, of course, the Mets. Against those teams, they have a 36-8 record. Against the same crew, Boston is 24-12.
So much for the Yankees and Red Sox using one another as a measuring stick. (By the way, the Mets beat the Phillies 11 of 18 last season, and we all know where that got them.)
For all the mouth-breathing about the rivalry between the Yankees and Red Sox and the earth-shattering significance of every game between them, the truth is that at the end of the day and the end of the season, this is how much difference it makes if the Yankees turn it all around and win the remaining 10 games between them, or if they never solve the puzzle and wind up losing the season series 18-0:
One postseason game.
By now, it’s pretty obvious that either the Yankees or Red Sox will win the East, and the runner-up will get the wild card. That means that — assuming both get past their first-round opponents — everything that happens between them over the course of 162 regular-season games will be wiped out by seven games in October.
And aside from bragging rights, the actual benefit of winning the regular-season series?
One additional home game in October.
Whoopdie-damned-doo. When the time comes, the Yankees will either do it or they won’t, and nothing else is likely to matter all that much.
Right now, Phil Hughes looks like the answer to the Joba Question, Joba looks like the answer to the Chien-Ming Wang problem, and Mitre is no worse than any other fifth starter and a whole lot better than most.
Plus, this is a team that doesn’t give up on a pitch, let alone an at-bat or a game. That must be why there is no “sky is falling” air of desperation surrounding the Yankees’ futility against the Red Sox, because they have been so good against just about everyone else.
So far this season, the Yankees are 0-8 against one team and 60-30 against the other 28.
And it doesn’t seem to matter if they ever manage to beat that one team between now and their last regular-season meeting Sept. 27. All that’s left for the Yankees to do now, it seems, is figure out a way to beat the Red Sox four times in October.