What Yankees are thinking about Wild Card Game roster

Yankees manager Aaron Boone talks about his mindset regarding his club’s Wild Card Game roster.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Yankees carried nine pitchers on their 25-man roster for the 2015 AL Wild Card Game, a loss to the Houston Astros at Yankee Stadium.

Last year, they went with 10 arms when they were beat the Minnesota Twins at home in the Wild Card Game.

They’ll be playing in the Wild Card Game for the third time in four seasons next Wednesday.

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How many pitchers will they go with for their do-or-die game against the Oakland Athletics?

“I could see anywhere from 10, 11, 12,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Wednesday before his club’s 8-7 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays. “Those will be some of the final decisions we have obviously.”

The next few days will determine whether the Yankees again host the Wild Card Game – they have a 1 1/2-game lead and hold the tiebreaker with four days remaining in the regular season.

The Yankees’ Wild Card roster won’t be decided until after their weekend series in Boston and maybe not until the morning of the game, which is the deadline.

At this point, there appear to be 20 locks for their Wild Card roster, seven pitchers and 13 position players.

Here’s our guess at the locks:

Unnamed starter pitcher: (1): J.A. Happ, Luis Severino or Masahiro Tanaka.

Relievers (6): Dellin Betances, Zach Britton, Aroldis Chapman, Chad Green, Jonathan Holder and David Robertson.

Catchers (2): Gary Sanchez and Austin Romine.

Infielders (6): Luke Voit, Gleyber Torres, Didi Gregorius, Miguel Andujar, Adeiny Hechavarria and Neil Walker.

Outfielders (4): Andrew McCutchen, Aaron Judge, Aaron Hicks, Brett Gardner.

Designated hitter (1): Giancarlo Stanton.

That would leave five spots, and at least two of them and maybe four would go to the Yankees’ other starting pitchers: CC Sabathia, Lance Lynn and the two mentioned above that aren’t pick to start.

That would leave one, two or three roster spots remaining for others believed to be on the bubble: lefty reliever Stephen Tarpley, first baseman Greg Bird and utility infielder/pinch-runner Tyler Wade.

The guess here is that pitchers Sonny Gray, A.J Cole and Tommy Kahnle, and utility infielder Ronald Torreyes are extreme long shots.

What’s Boone thinking?

“Do we want to carry that extra bench guy?” he said. “Do we want it to be an extra pitcher? How do we see it unfolding to a degree? I would expect 10, 11 or 12 (pitchers). Those are the really tough final decisions you make.

“I think we can all envision who the 23, 24 guys are. It’s who are the three or four guys we’re considering for that last spot. That’ll be something we discuss and certainly haven’t finalized yet.”

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