Yankees’ Ryan McMahon could loom large in his playoff return

MINNEAPOLIS — He was an All-Star third baseman playing in a smaller market, stuck on a team going nowhere.

The Yankees acquired him at the trade deadline, dropping him into a playoff race where suddenly every game was a whole lot more pressurized. The Southern California product’s bat was fairly quiet in the early going, but he made his impact felt with his defense.

He is Ryan McMahon … and was Aaron Boone.

There are no knuckleballers lurking in the league these days for McMahon to hit a home run off of this October, so the similarities may end there. But the current Yankees third baseman is looking forward to getting back to postseason baseball after a small taste of it with the Rockies as a rookie in 2018.