Yankees take the day off — and gain the lead

Reporting from San Francisco

The New York Yankees gained ground in the American League East Division race Friday even though they didn’t play. But their weekend got quite a bit more complicated as a result.

After a wait of more than three hours, the opener of the Yankees’ three-game series with Boston at Fenway Park was rained out, meaning New York will have to play three games in the season’s final 24 hours.

If that’s the bad news, however, here’s the good news: The Yankees will go into those games atop the division because the previous East leader, Tampa Bay, scored as many runs Friday as the Yankees did.

And the Rays played.

Held to just a pair of hits by Kansas City left-hander Bruce Chen, Tampa Bay failed to score for the third time in five days, losing, 7-0, to drop half a game behind the soggy Yankees. New York is 94-65, Tampa Bay is 94-66.

“We have not looked good at the plate,” Rays Manager Joe Maddon told reporters. “We’ve been through short stretches like this but we always come out of it OK. We’ll go out and play a good game [Saturday] and we’ll be fine.”

Whichever team finishes second in the division race will still advance to the postseason as the AL wild-card winner. But that means a trip to Minnesota for the opening round.

Plus with the Twins (93-67) also losing Friday — falling 6-3 to Toronto, their seventh loss in eight games — the team that wins the East is likely to get home-field advantage throughout the league playoffs while the wild-card team will have to play the majority of its games on the road.

The Yankees are expected to pitch Andy Pettitte and A.J. Burnett in Saturday’s day-night doubleheader, which is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. EDT.

kevin.baxter@latimes.com