Coming up through the Yankees system, George Lombard Jr. wowed as much with his athleticism and winning plays as he did with his bat and glove.

One of those athletic, winning plays showed up in The Bronx on Thursday. Soon thereafter, his bat aided the winning, too.

The rookie shortstop dazzled with an inventive and effective slide home in the seventh inning, then in the eighth he drilled a two-run, go-ahead home run in what became a 6-4 victory over the Rays in The Bronx.

In a game that did not matter because the Rays already had clinched the division, so the Yankees only pitched Cam Schlittler for three innings before testing a series of bullpen arms, Lombard found a way to entertain the announced crowd of 44,136 nonetheless.

In the seventh, Lombard was on third base when Tampa Bay’s Brody Hopkins unleashed a wild pitch that bounced off the backstop but right back to catcher Liam Hicks.

“My first thought was the ricochet,” manager Aaron Boone said, “Oh, no.”

Hicks took a few steps for the ball, spun around and dove to the plate, beating Lombard easily.

“Oh, I’m out,” went through Lombard’s mind. “So I’ve got to make something up.”

He quickly abandoned a feet-first slide because he saw Hicks, too, was on the ground. In one motion, Lombard scrambled to his feet, took a step and tumbled over the plate and Hicks, dragging his right hand on the plate before the tag to cut the deficit to 4-3.

“I think that’s my first time doing that one in a game,” Lombard said with a smile. “I was in trouble, had to figure something out. Kind of happened.”

He then jogged into a Yankees dugout that was filled with smiling faces who had just witnessed a slide and tumble that few had seen before.

The Yankees tied the game later in the inning when Paul Goldschmidt singled home Austin Wells.

Then Lombard untied it in the eighth, when he demolished a Steven Matz sinker to the second deck in left to complete the comeback in game the Yankees trailed, 4-0 entering the bottom of the sixth.

That was before Lombard’s mind, legs and bat — now with four home runs in his past seven games — took over.

“Just a really good athletic play by the old soccer player,” Boone said of the slide.

With the Guardians beating the Red Sox, Boston was unable to clinch the fifth seed and a first-round date with the Yankees. With three games remaining, the Red Sox are three games ahead of the sixth-seed White Sox.

Luis Gil was optioned, and thus will not be on the playoff roster for the wild-card round, after pitching two innings without allowing an earned run but letting up one unearned while walking four.

The just-called-up Bradley Hanner also was optioned.

Anthony Volpe got the start at second base (and went 0-for-3 with a walk), with Amed Rosario (1-for-4) at third and José Caballero (0-for-3) in center against Tampa Bay left-hander Ian Seymour.

Volpe, who has taken grounders at third, still hasn’t started a game there in the majors and the Yankees have to determine what they want to do at the spot, especially if they end up facing the Red Sox and their lefty-heavy pitching staff in the wild-card series.