It was Monday evening and Aaron Boone had just estimated that Gleyber Torres might miss three weeks of the pennant race with a thumb sprain and, by the way, Gio Urshela was back in New York after his hamstring injury got unexpectedly worse. There were no more big league shortstops around here.

This was a day after Boone was forced to announce that new catalyst Anthony Rizzo had tested positive for COVID-19, four days after he revealed the same about Gary Sanchez and a week after sharing Gerrit Cole and Jordan Montgomery’s diagnoses.

A team this decimated really has no business playing its most inspired baseball of the season, so I asked Boone why he thought that was happening.

"We’ve got a lot of really good players who are really focused on winning, and understanding what a critical time we’re in in our season," the manager said, with a firm look that made clear his words weren’t boilerplate, but deeply felt.

"There is no other expectation other than to continue to win games. We have the players, even though we have some obviously really important players down, we also have a lot of players who are capable of playing at a very high level and winning games. And that is solely the focus."

The team’s extraordinary run continued in the hours that followed, with a wild, messy win in Kansas City that could easily have been a maddening loss. Apparently -- and in stark contrast to the early months of the season -- the Yanks don’t do gutting defeats anymore. After a season spent mostly in crisis, they now figure out how to win.

The ways that this 8-6, 11-inning win could have gone wrong included: A pair of questionable calls by the home plate umpire, one on a close play at the plate in which Aaron Judge was ruled out, and the other a borderline balk call on Jonathan Loaisiga that led to Boone’s ejection.

Blown saves by four (!) separate relievers: Loaisiga, Chad Green, Zack Britton, and Clay Holmes. Brett Gardner making a key out on the bases.

The first few positive turns for the Yanks came courtesy of Luke Voit. Of course they did. Voit lost his job because of the Rizzo trade and was supposed to be traded himself, and then optioned to the minor leagues. It was no one’s Plan A for him to be the starting first baseman in Monday’s game.

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