Bernie Williams got an afternoon full of ovations, a reward for 15 years of thrills he’s given fans at Yankee Stadium.

Robinson Cano hit a go-ahead, two run homer in the seventh inning, Gary Sheffield added a three-run shot in the eighth, and Chien- Ming Wang got another big win, leading the Yankees over the Toronto Blue Jays 8-4 Sunday in New York’s final scheduled home game of the regular season.

“This was a game that we had to win,” Williams said after perhaps his last game with New York in Yankee Stadium.

On the 37th anniversary of Mickey Mantle’s Yankee Stadium finale, Cano and Wang did their best to get Williams a few more games in pinstripes and kept New York tied with Boston atop the AL East at 91-64 with a week to go.The Red Sox beat Baltimore 9-3 yesterday.

A fan favorite since he came up to the Yankees in 1991, Williams repeatedly was applauded on the overcast afternoon by the sellout crowd of 55,136, which raised New York’s home total to an AL record 4,090,696.The 37-year-old center fielder, whose production has declined the past three years, can become a free agent after the season.

“We’re hoping there’s more Bernie Williams at Yankee Stadium because we’re hoping we’re still playing in 10 days or so,” Torre said.

Williams went 1-for-4 with an infield single. When the Yankees began the bottom of the eighth, fans chanted his name, reminiscent of their tribute to Paul O’Neill during Game 5 of the 2001 World Series. Sitting in the dugout, Williams wasn’t sure what to do and turned to Torre for advice before walking up the steps for a curtain call.

“I was trying to make sure I was within protocol within the team, and trying not to disturb anybody,” Williams said. “They were not going to stop, so I sort of looked at Joe and said, ‘Can I do this?’ and he said, ‘Yes.’ It was a great moment, and I appreciate it a lot.”

New York, which won for the 12th time in 14 games, headed to Baltimore for a four-game series starting tonight a half-game behind Cleveland in the wild-card race. After playing at Camden Yards, the Yankees close the season with three games at Fenway Park.

“My future is going to be determined in a great way on how we finish this year,” Williams said. “So I’ve got to take care of the present now, and hopefully the future will take care of itself.”

New York trailed 3-1 against Josh Towers before getting four straight singles in the sixth. The Yankees managed only one run, on Derek Jeter’s RBI single, because Cano was thrown out trying to go from first to third on Williams’s infield hit, not realizing the ball had been knocked down by second baseman Aaron Hill.

Jorge Posada singled on the first pitch of the seventh and two pitches later Cano reached outside for a curveball and hooked it over the right-field wall for his 14th homer.

Wang (8-4) allowed three runs and six hits in seven innings to help New York rebound from Saturday’s 7-4 loss, which wiped out the one-game lead the Yankees had held for three nights. He is on track to start Friday’s series opener at Boston.

“We need to go out and win all the games, as Boston does,” Torre said. “A week from today, the smoke clears. Hopefully, we’re standing tall.”