“It’s not like these pitches that guys disagreed with were a foot off the plate,” Headley said. “That type of strike zone helped him out. He was getting a high strike, which for his stuff is helpful for him, but I didn’t think it was an overly lopsided strike zone by any means.”

When Manager Terry Francona popped out of the dugout to relieve Bauer following a two-out single to Starlin Castro in the seventh, all of his Indians teammates in the infield congregated on the mound and offered high-fives. As Bauer walked off the mound, the crowd gave a standing ovation, and he tipped his cap as he reached the dugout.

“I’ve had quite a few starts this year where I spray curveballs around and I can’t locate it where I need to until maybe the third or fourth inning,” Bauer said, explaining that he did extra work in recent days so that his best pitch would be sharp from the outset.

“When that pitch is good for me, I tend to have a pretty good night,” he said.

The way Bauer pitched, the Yankees needed a near-perfect effort from Gray, who may have been feeling some déjà vu. The last time he pitched in the playoffs, as a rookie in 2013, Justin Verlander, then with the Detroit Tigers, no-hit his Oakland Athletics for six and two-third innings to win the decisive Game 5 of their American League division series, 3-0.

After Gray departed, Adam Warren, Jaime Garcia and Dellin Betances allowed two hits and only one run over the final four and two-thirds innings. The run was driven in, naturally, by Bruce, who fell behind 0-2, worked the count full and delivered a sacrifice fly against Garcia.

Gray gave credit to Bruce for doing his earlier damage on two tricky pitches — a letter-high fastball that carried into the right-field seats and a low-and-away, two-seam fastball that Bruce hit off the left-field wall.

“Those first two at-bats, he hit some really tough pitches that Sonny threw,” Frazier said of Bruce, his former teammate in Cincinnati. “He stepped up for the Indians. He’s a good player. Any team would like him and Cleveland made a good choice, as you see right now.”