Yankees finally conquer despised Red Sox with series win

BOSTON — The Yankees conquered a nemesis on the mound, and by the end of the night, the team across the way.

In between, they hung on for dear life.

After their bats finally created some offense against Brayan Bello for an early lead, the Yankees’ bullpen finished off another late nail-biter as they secured a 5-3 win over the Red Sox that clinched the series victory on Saturday at Fenway Park.

On a day when the Yankees wasted multiple chances to break open the game and allow themselves to breathe a little easier in the late innings, their inconsistent back-end crew did their job as Luke Weaver, Devin Williams, Fernando Cruz and David Bednar combined to record the final 11 outs.

Cruz gave up a solo home run (for the second straight night) to Jarren Duran in the eighth inning, but Cody Bellinger got the run back in the ninth with an RBI double that capped off a nine-pitch battle against Aroldis Chapman as the Yankees (83-65) moved 2 1/2 games ahead of the Red Sox (81-68) for the top AL wild-card spot and gave themselves a chance to sweep the series on Sunday night.

With the Blue Jays pulling off a late comeback over the Orioles on Saturday, the Yankees could only keep pace with them in the division race, remaining three games back (Toronto owns the tiebreaker) with 14 games to play.

Jazz Chisholm Jr. fueled the offense with a three-hit, three-RBI day, including his 29th home run of the season – which put the Yankees ahead 4-0 off Bello in the fifth inning – to bring him one away from joining the 30-30 club.