In must-win situation, Yankees respond

NEW YORK — Behind closed doors at Yankee Stadium, general manager Brian Cashman and his underlings have been working on a pair of divergent road maps for the next few weeks. One has the Yankees as buyers, the other as sellers, and the organization still has not determined which will see the light of day.

No one is about to shred the “sell” plan after Sunday’s 3-1 victory over the Red Sox, but salvaging the series finale may have moved the needle slightly back from that direction. Manager Joe Girardi called the contest “probably as important a July game” as they’ve had in recent memory, and the players grasped that sense of urgency.

“It was good; a must-win for us,” outfielder Carlos Beltran said. “Now we have Baltimore, who’s playing good baseball also, so it’s an important series. This homestand is important overall for us. I think this homestand will dictate what the future holds for a lot of guys here.”

New York stumbled in the first two games out of the All-Star break, held to five runs and nine hits by Boston pitching in the pair of losses. The Yankees have been saying for weeks that they believe they are a better team on paper than they have shown, and Sunday’s effort better represented their blueprint.

“Every game we play from now on is important,” shortstop Didi Gregorius said. “We try to stay positive. We ended the first half against Cleveland going strong, so why not keep going that way? For us, today showed that …

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