So the Yankees took care of a little housekeeping Sunday night during a 7-2 throttling of the Red Sox in The Bronx. They splintered the link that surely would’ve grown if they’d lost a fourth straight game to the Sox, at home, late in the season, a rusty chain linking 2025 and 1978 when it was the Yankees who turned that trick, still known in these part as the Boston Massacre.

They made sure they will not lie in state alongside the 1912 Yankees, then known as the Highlanders, who went 2-19 against the Sox and were outscored 149-76 in those games and finished a solid 55 games behind the 105-57 Sox. The worst they can do now is 2-11.

Hey, small steps before bigger ones, am I right?

Mostly, they made sure to ready-aim-fire at the inviting fences at Yankee Stadium and did what they do better than any team in baseball, launching four balls beyond those barriers, two apiece by Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Trent Grisham, good enough for six of those seven runs, good enough to take a game off the Red Sox.