#How Yankees, Rays are viewing rivalry heading into big ALDS

After the Yankees suffered one of their ugliest losses of the season to the Blue Jays in Buffalo just over a week ago, they learned the Rays had clinched the AL East.

Following that Sept. 23 game, Luke Voit said, “We’ll see them again.”

Voit proved to be right after the division rivals advanced to the ALDS, and starting Monday at Petco Park in San Diego, the Yankees get their shot at redemption.

The two teams met 10 times in the 60-game regular season and Tampa Bay won eight of those games.

Mixed in were a lot of bad feelings and a near bench-clearing brawl triggered when Aroldis Chapman buzzed Mike Brosseau with a 101 mph fastball in a Yankees win on Sept. 1.

Afterward, Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash said: “Somebody’s got to be accountable. And the last thing I’ll say on it, I got a whole damn stable of guys that throw 98 mph. Period.”

The Rays made T-shirts celebrating Cash’s response, but didn’t take revenge in the team’s final matchup of the regular season the following day.

“We understand it’s there,’’ Giancarlo Stanton said of the bitterness after the Yankees worked out at Progressive Field in Cleveland on Thursday, hours after they beat the Indians in a wild Game 2 clincher.

“But they won the division,’’ Stanton said of the Rays. “They’ve got that now and we have an opportunity to let them just have the division. The full bragging rights chance is here. Shirts and hats don’t mean anything. We’re gonna be in San Diego and play it out there.”

Brosseau downplayed last month’s fireworks Thursday.

“I think everything that happened in New York is hopefully in the past,” Brosseau told reporters. “The way that we pitch is the way that we pitch. But as far as things carrying over from past experiences, at least from our end, I think we put it in the past and our focus is on getting past this round and moving on.’’

Cash and Aaron Boone served one-game suspensions following the incident, while Chapman’s appeal of a three-game ban was pushed to next year.

“We’re ready,’’ Stanton said. “It’s gonna be fun. It’s gonna be a good fight to take this East Coast battle to the West Coast.”

It will be the latest matchup between the two clubs that have grown to dislike each other over the last few years, with Tampa Bay serving as the top seed in the AL, and the Yankees fifth — a disparity Boone made light of Thursday.

“We’re clearly the underdog now [against] the big bad No. 1 seed of the AL East,’’ Boone said with a smile. “Look, I don’t think it will be very difficult to really focus. We want to win and advance. That’s where our focus is gonna lie. We don’t want to get caught up in the back and forth. There are gonna be things that come up that will probably be a little contentious during the series, but I’m confident our guys will do a good job of keeping their blinders on.”

Even if the teams continue to pitch up and in at each other, as has happened in the past.

“They’re gonna do what they have to do to try to make us uncomfortable,’’ hitting coach Marcus Thames said. “We have to do the same thing as hitters. If that’s their game plan, good luck to them. I don’t think they can pitch in for strikes. If we stick to our plan, our approach will be fine.”

The time for talking is over.

“That’s the entertainment business of it,’’ Stanton said of the feuding between the teams. “At the end of the day, it’s a series like this to make a statement. Not anything else.”

Boone believes that won’t be a problem.

“We want to win a championship,’’ Boone said. “This team has been through a lot. We’ve knocked on the door a lot. Hopefully this is the year we can kick it in.”