You could see it coming — and still it was stunning.
The first flare came in the pregame Tuesday when Guardians manager Stephen Vogt had promised to be “aggressive” before ALCS Game 2. And it wasn’t just words because there he was warming up his best set-up man, Cade Smith, in the second inning.
That frame had opened: Anthony Volpe single, Anthony Rizzo single and Alex Verdugo RBI double. It was 1-0 Yankees. Second and third. And then Gleyber Torres popped out and, yeah, you can see it at that point. But could you really believe it?
Was he really going to walk the on-fire Juan Soto to load the bases to bring in Smith to go after the struggling Judge — work around someone else to face the hitting monster who was pitched around and intentionally walked more than anyone this season?
In this October moment it made sense — such were the depths of Judge’s struggles this postseason and years of postseasons now.
Judge did not have his Mark Vientos moment of feeling disrespected by having the bases loaded in front of him and responding with a grand slam as the Mets third baseman did in NLCS Game 2 in Los Angeles. He did lift a sacrifice fly.
But in his last at-bat of the night, Judge finally gave the Yankees something that had been missing even as they have been winning this postseason. Breathing room.
The Yankees have been playing the same game on endless loop for a week-plus — do enough to prosper against an overmatched AL Central team. But they have been keeping first the Royals and now the Guardians in tight games. That is mainly because the Yankees are a team that needs to hit homers to do the bulk of their scoring and find their inner monster.
And for five playoff games plus six innings Tuesday, they had managed just five homers and all but the first one — a two-run shot by Gleyber Torres in the Division Series opener — had been solo shots. Importantly, none were by Judge, who so often is the Yankee bellwether. As he goes, so goes the Yankee offense. And he came into his seventh-inning at-bat 3-for-24 (.125) in these playoffs and at .202 in what was now his 50th postseason game.
But with one out in the seventh, Torres on with his third hit and the Yankees in another nail-biter at 4-2, Judge launched a Hunter Gaddis drive a modest skyscraper high to center. It just kept carrying, as the might of a Judge blast is wont to do. It landed in the netting beyond the wall 414 feet from home plate. The Yankees had breathing room. They led 6-2.
The final would be 6-3. So the Yankees lead this best-of-seven two-games-to-none, leaving them two victories from their first AL pennant since 2009. And if that swing unleashed Judge, then getting to the World Series and doing something special there becomes more viable.
Judge began this game luckier than good. For the fifth time in these playoffs, Torres and Soto opened the first inning with hits and handed Judge a baton to break the game open. He had failed to do that so far. And this time he hit a pop-up that shortstop Bryan Rocchio did a Luis Castillo on — clanking it to allow Torres to score on the error. Judge was now 1-for-his-last-22 in the postseason with runners in scoring position.
It is why Vogt’s strategy made sense in the second. The Yankees had one more in, two more on and Vogt decided that the best way to keep the Yankees from scoring again was to not to pitch to Soto and go after Judge. That was right for this moment. Judge did well against a pitcher as good as Smith to lift a 1-2 offering for a sacrifice fly — that kept him at 0-for-his-last-21 in the postseason when the count reached two strikes.
Still, the Yankees remained in the familiar role of not breaking away. Gerrit Cole got worse and worse as his start progressed, yielding two runs in the fifth and not making it out of the inning. It was 3-2. The Yanks scored once in the sixth, but both Jazz Chisholm and Rizzo were unforgivingly nabbed wandering too far from second base.
So the game remained tight. Vogt was going for it, figuring that going down oh-two was not elimination, but a giant step toward it. He pinch hit for his starting catcher, Bo Naylor, with the bases loaded against Cole in the fourth. He summoned his top lefty, Tim Herrin, in the bottom of that inning. And he turned to Gaddis — one of his big four relievers with Smith, Herrin and closer Emmanuel Clase — to begin the seventh to try to hold the Yankees at 4-2.
But Torres, a terrific at-bat this October, singled leading off and, after Soto flied out, Judge finally had a moment. A fan had screamed at Judge, “Time to wake up” during his second-inning at-bat against Smith.
Better late than never. Judge took Gaddis deep. The Yankees had breathing room and ultimately another win. They have five of the 11 they need to be champions.
And obviously the road from here to there becomes much more possible if Judge just gave a sign of breaking out.
