Yankees get two homers from Juan Soto, one each from Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge to back Marcus Stroman's strong start

The Yankees got a strong start from Marcus Stroman and an even stronger display of power from their three most feared home run hitters.

That should have been enough on Sunday for a feel-good rout to end their longest homestand of the season.

Instead, they had to sweat out an 8-7 victory over the Rangers that left them tied with Baltimore atop the AL East and just plain tired.

“Kind of hit a little wall there,” Clay Holmes said after securing a four-out save that required 45 pitches — 37 in the ninth — and ended with the tying run at third base and the go-ahead run at second. “I was just trying to slow things down and take a breath and try to gather myself and slow the heart rate down.”

It finally ended when Leody Taveras hit a grounder to second baseman Gleyber Torres, who stumbled and backhanded the ball awkwardly but was able to record a shaky final out.

What was Aaron Boone thinking as Holmes’ pitch count rose?

“Not easy,” he said. “I was uncomfortable with it, without a doubt. But I also felt like we had to ride it there to the end.”

The Yankees (70-49) did it with a bounce-back effort from Stroman, who was backed by two home runs from Juan Soto (Nos. 29 and 30) and one each from Giancarlo Stanton (No. 20) and Aaron Judge (No. 42).

The Stanton homer was particularly satisfying. It was a three-run shot with two outs in the fifth that came after the Rangers (55-63) walked Judge intentionally in front of him.

If Stanton can keep that up, Judge figures to get more chances to hit. He continues to be pretty good at that. He was 3-for-3 with his 106th RBI and a walk and is batting .328. “He’s an all-time talent,” Stanton said.

The Yankees are 40-4 when both Judge and Stanton homer.

As for Stroman, he had been struggling, recording a 6.32 ERA in his previous 10 starts and most recently allowing seven runs in 2 2⁄3 innings against the Blue Jays on Aug. 2. He had his next start pushed back a couple of days to Sunday to give him time to tinker in the bullpen on his mechanics. Apparently, it worked. He allowed one run, four hits and three walks in five innings-plus.

“I’m not someone who ever loses confidence, regardless of a few outings,” he said. “My confidence is pretty stuck there where it is regardless of what I’m going through.”

Boone said Stroman did a good job staying away from the heart of the plate and had “crisp” stuff.

The Yankees completed their longest homestand of the season with a 5-4 record and next have three games in Chicago against the White Sox (28-91), who have lost 27 of their last 29 games.

The Yankees made it 2-0 in the third inning when Soto crushed a 413-foot home run into the rightfield bleachers off lefthander Andrew Heaney on a 3-and-1 fastball.

In the fifth, the Rangers intentionally walked Judge and Stanton followed with a screaming line drive into the leftfield stands for a 5-0 lead. The 405-foot drive, on which Stanton’s right knee nearly touched the ground as he reached out to hook a low-and-away 2-and-2 slider from Jose Leclerc, had an exit velocity of 114.9 mph.

A two-out error by third baseman Jazz Chisholm handed the Rangers two runs in the top of the seventh, but in the bottom of the inning, Soto and Judge hit back-to-back homers for the fourth time this season to give the Yankees an 8-3 lead.

Mark Leiter Jr. gave up a solo homer by Nathaniel Lowe and a two-out, two-run shot by Carson Kelly in the eighth, prompting Boone to go to Holmes with two outs and a man on second. He got out of that jam and struck out Marcus Semien and Josh Jung to begin the ninth, but two walks and Adolis Garcia’s RBI single to center made it 8-7. After Garcia stole second, Holmes went to 3-and-2 on Taveras before escaping the jam.

Boone called it a “grind-it out game.”

“Everyone contributed,” Stanton said. “We needed every last one.”

Notes & quotes: Soto now has homered against all 30 major-league teams in his career . . . Attendance was 45,318 . . . Catcher Jose Trevino started a rehab assignment with Double-A Somerset . . . The Yankees have at least eight hits in 15 consecutive games, their longest such streak since 1997 . . . The home run was the 299th of Judge’s career.

By Neil Best

neil.best@newsday.com@sportswatch

Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.