Yankees will have some pitching decisions to make

The Yankees, at the moment, have six healthy starting pitchers, far more than they’ll need for whatever postseason series they’re in, whether it’s a best-of-three Wild Card Series or best-of-five Division Series.

The first domino in that regard fell Friday when Aaron Boone announced that Marcus Stroman will be shifted to the bullpen down the stretch. And there will be at least one more to come as the season winds down.

“I’ve said the last few days, I feel like one of the good things happening for us is we are as whole as we’ve been, really, in several years,”  Boone said before Saturday’s 7-1 loss to the Red Sox. “There’s been a lot of years where we’ve had good seasons [and] and we’ve gotten to the postseason where we’ve had some attrition, we’ve had some key guys go down for us and stuff. I feel like we’re getting guys back.”

Heading that list from a starting pitching standpoint, of course, are Clarke Schmidt and Luis Gil. Schmidt, among the rotation standouts from the first two months of the season before going down in late May with a lat strain, returned recently and has performed well. Gil, a rookie who by any objective measure has been the most consistent of all Yankees starters this season, just came off a 15-day stint on the injured list with a lower back strain. He too has pitched well since his return.

Both are very much in the discussion of being included in the first-round playoff rotation (those talks, though in the super-early preliminary stages, have been ongoing).

And all that is known for sure is that Gerrit Cole, despite Saturday’s hiccup against the Red Sox, will start Game 1 of any first-round series.

Carlos Rodon is all but certain to be there as well, though it is not clear whether he would go in Game 2 or Game 3. Nestor Cortes, who recently piggybacked Schmidt in a game at Wrigley Field against the Cubs — and threw 4 1/3 scoreless and hitless innings — is a strong candidate to be shifted to the bullpen, where he has previous experience. But the different look he presents with his array of windups and soft stuff make him a consideration to be in the rotation.

Gil has never pitched in relief at this level; though Schmidt has done it, he will have plenty of backers to stay in the rotation, especially if he continues to pitch the way he did before the injury, when he was 5-3 with a 2.52 ERA after 11 starts.

“I’m glad, and we’ll just kind of figure it out as we go as best we can,” Boone said. “That’s kind of how I’ve done the last 10 days with some pitching decisions. But I feel like a lot of guys are in good spots from a pitching standpoint, so it’s making the inevitable decisions that we’ll have to make maybe a little more difficult, but good decisions to have because people are in the mix.”

Notes & quotes: Saturday's sellout crowd — the Yankees' 16th of the season — of 46,378 pushed the season attendance to 3,008,150, the 24th straight season (when there was full attendance) in which the club has drawn 3 million fans. It is the longest such streak in MLB history . . . Gleyber Torres, who had an RBI single Saturday, is 33-for-109 (.303) since being moved into the leadoff spot on Aug. 16.