Aaron Judge, with sparkling wine from white and gold bottles dripping down his 6-foot-7 frame, enjoyed the moment.
“Nothing is ever guaranteed,” said the New York Yankees captain.
Judge hit his major league-leading 58th home run, making it five games in a row that he went deep, helping the Yankees defeat the Baltimore Orioles 10-1 on Thursday night and secure the AL East title with three games left to play.
This season was a big change from 2023, when the Yankees struggled to finish with an 82-80 record, nearly marking their first losing season since 1992.
“Coming up short last year, it stings,” Judge said. “It hurts just like any other year that you don’t win a World Series, but that one hurt a little bit more. So we wanted to make a statement, come back here, and put ourselves in a good position going into the postseason.”
With their 21st division title, including the first half of the 1981 split season, the Yankees (93-66) will start their 59th postseason at home on Oct. 5 in a best-of-five Division Series against a winner from next week’s wild-card round.
Last year, the Yankees missed the playoffs for the first time since 2016, the year Judge made his major league debut in mid-August.
Judge, along with Juan Soto, Giancarlo Stanton, and Gerrit Cole, understands that the Yankees are judged not just by division titles but by World Series rings, like Yogi Berra’s 10, Joe DiMaggio’s nine, and Derek Jeter’s five.
They wore T-shirts that said in large letters: “We own the East,” with “American League” in smaller letters in the middle. But to win their 28th World Series title and their first since 2009, they need to celebrate three more times.
Manager Aaron Boone kept his postgame comments brief in the clubhouse. “I said some things and then they just wanted to start spraying,” he recalled.
After a season with ups and downs, New York secured at least a wild-card spot on September 18 and celebrated with a party filled with drinks in Seattle.
The Yankees had a strong start, going 50-22 in mid-June, then struggled with a 30-38 record until early September, but they have since won 13 of their last 19 games.
“You can’t take this for granted at all,” Stanton said. “It’s expected, for sure, but times like last year, it didn’t happen. So you got to appreciate it. We’re here now. Enjoy it. You never know if you ever get a chance at it again.”
The Yankees returned home this week needing just one win to clinch the AL East title but lost two games in a row to second-place Baltimore (88-71), which delayed their celebration. They ended the Orioles’ one-year hold on the division and left them with a wild-card spot.
“I don’t think we were the pick necessarily,” Boone said. “Understandable. What we came off of last year, we had a lot to prove.”
Judge raised his RBI total to 144, the highest in the majors since Ryan Howard’s 146 in 2008. Stanton hit his 27th home run and had four RBIs, while Cole pitched 6 2/3 innings, allowing only two hits, to outpitch Corbin Burnes (15-9) in a matchup of Cy Young Award winners.
Cole, the current AL Cy Young Award winner, didn’t start his season until June 19 due to nerve irritation and swelling in his throwing elbow that kept him out since spring training. He finished the season with an 8-5 record and a 3.41 ERA.
“You just feel alive. It’s the best feeling. The stakes are high. The juices are flowing,” Cole said. “Last year was a humbling experience. It reminds you the game’s really hard, and this season was hard for us, as well, even though we clinched here with a few games to go.”
After Cedric Mullins made a game-ending groundout to shortstop Anthony Volpe, who threw to first baseman Anthony Rizzo, the Yankees ran out of the dugout and quickly huddled in celebration between the mound and second base.
Many fans in the crowd of 42,022 stood up for a long applause.
The Yankees are trying to keep their lead over the AL Central champion Cleveland for home-field advantage throughout the American League playoffs. They have a one-game lead and also hold the tiebreaker over the Guardians (92-67).
“I start banging that desk from day one with our guys: ‘It’s coming for us. We think we’re going to go do special things this year, but along the way, even in a great season and what we hope ends with the championship, we’re going to face moments of truth.
We’re going to face adversity. We’re going to face tough times. We got to be prepared to handle that,’” Boone said. “We’ve had a lot of gut-check moments, a tough loss or a tough stretch, and these guys have really just kind of stayed the course.”
