Aaron Judge awoke on Saturday night after a brief postseason slumber.
It still wasn’t enough to fend off the Guardians in a wild Game 3 of the ALDS.
But if the Yankees are going to extend their season past Sunday, they will need Judge to do more of what he did Saturday in what became an excruciating 6-5, walk-off loss to the Guardians at Progressive Field.
Judge, who was dropped from the leadoff spot and hit second for the first time since Sept. 8, entered his at-bat in the third inning 0-for-9 with eight strikeouts in the ALDS. But he got a gift from Guardians right-hander Triston McKenzie in the form of a 94 mph fastball right down the middle, which he demolished 449 feet to center field for a two-run home run that tied the game at two.
“Judgey hit the homer, it does settle us a little bit and inject some life into us,” manager Aaron Boone said.
Aaron Judge watches his two-run homer leave the yard in the third inning of the Yankees’ 6-5 Game 3 loss to the Guardians. Corey Sipkin
Coming off a historic regular season in which he crushed 62 home runs to become the American League’s new home run king, Judge had gone cold at the wrong time to begin the playoffs. With the offense largely struggling around him, Judge was unable to put the team on his back like he had so often during the regular season, and his four strikeouts in a Game 2 loss earned him boos from the home crowd at Yankee Stadium on Friday afternoon.
But he got back in the hit and home run columns on Saturday to get the Yankees back in the game before they eventually blew it.
“I was just trying to do my job there with a guy on base and drive him in,” the likely AL MVP said. “Luckily I tied up the game. But up and down this whole lineup, guys were fouling off tough pitches, working the count. So I wouldn’t say my homer [loosened the team up], but I was just happy to get there and tie the game up.”
Judge’s home run was his first in the postseason since Game 5 of the 2020 ALDS, which the Yankees ultimately lost to the Rays.
In order to avoid the same fate on Sunday, Judge may need to come up big again like he did on Saturday, though he declined to put too much meaning into his home run.
“It’s just another day,” Judge said. “I don’t really look into it too much. I still got a job to do. It doesn’t matter if I got a homer in my last at-bat or struck out in my last at-bat. The next at-bat’s the most important one. So I try to focus on that and we’ll take that into [Sunday].”
