As Aaron Judge lofted a flyball to deep center field in the seventh inning on Tuesday night, Gleyber Torres made a mistake.
The second baseman, unsure just how far the ball would travel on a windy night at Yankee Stadium, tagged up at first base. He wasn’t alone in the error, as Yankees first base coach Travis Chapman also encouraged the tag-up.
The two had to feel a bit silly when they watched the ball bounce off the exposed wall that separates the Yankees’ bullpen from Monument Park. If they didn’t, peers certainly made them feel that way after Judge’s first home run of the 2024 postseason padded a 6-3 win over the Guardians in Game 2 of the ALCS.
“He did that this year earlier too when I hit [a homer], so I was pretty pissed then,” Judge joked when asked about Torres’ tag. “I was pretty pissed again.”
Judge ultimately went on to say he’d “let this one slide” given the conditions.
However, Anthony Rizzo also made it a point to bust Torres’ chops.
“I’m a little disappointed in Gleyber for not knowing Judge’s pop there,” the veteran said. “We were ribbing him a lot about that.”
Torres owned up to the misread afterward, saying that he felt a “little bit embarrassed.”
AARON JUDGE DOUBLES THE @YANKEES LEAD! #ALCS pic.twitter.com/XBzdccyp3A
— MLB (@MLB) October 16, 2024
If the Yankees get their way, Judge will give Torres a few chances to redeem himself this October.
Judge led the majors with 58 homers this year, but his two-run shot on Tuesday was his first postseason blast since Game 5 of the 2022 ALDS. The Yankees went to the ALCS that year, but Judge didn’t have an extra-base hit in that series and batted .063 as the Yankees lost to the Astros in four games.
Prior to Tuesday’s dinger, Judge was 2-for-15 (.133) with one extra-base hit this postseason. Much has been made of the presumed MVP’s lackluster postseason play, but Judge has tried to tune out the noise.
“You’ve just got to stay focused on what you can control,” he said. “I’ve been booed here plenty of times. There’s been a lot of legends that played here that have been booed. It’s just part of it. You can’t focus on that.
“You’ve got to go out there. They want to see you win. They want to see you do well. You’ve just got to focus on what you can control. What I can control is what I do in the box and what I do on the field. All that other stuff, you just kind of ignore it and go out and have fun.”
Teammates, meanwhile, have remained supportive of the captain.
“The only place that he’s not doing well is maybe in some of the papers, but I’m pretty confident I know he doesn’t really look at any of that,” Rizzo said. “Whatever the narrative outside of this is the narrative, but inside, he does not falter from who he is every day.”
As Rizzo noted, Judge’s struggles have been well-documented, and they surely contributed to the Guardians’ decision to intentionally walk Juan Soto in the second inning of Game 2. The move loaded the bases for Judge, but he only put one run on the board with a sac fly. Cleveland stopped the bleeding there.
Back page for Oct. 16, 2024: Judge blasts first postseason HR of ’24 as Yanks grab 2-0 ALCS edge. Aaron Judge watches flight of two-run home run in seventh inning of Yankees’ 6-3 victory over Guardians in Game 2 of ALCS Tuesday at Stadium. Series shifts to Cleveland for Game 3 Thursday afternoon.
Afterward, Aaron Boone said that it’s “always a matter of time” when it comes to Judge going deep. However, he understood his counterpart, Stephen Vogt, making the call to walk Soto.
“You got to pick your poison sometimes,” Boone said, but Judge’s swing had lacked toxicity. It wasn’t until a few innings later that he reminded everyone just how virulent his bat can be.
Now Judge needs to make sure that the Guardians — and a potential World Series opponent — don’t tempt fate again. With the Yankees just two wins away from their first Fall Classic appearance since 2009, a power surge from MLB’s home run champ would make things easier for a club that is 5-1 this month despite some imperfect play.
With the ALCS moving to Cleveland on Thursday, Progressive Field will provide a challenge for Judge. He hasn’t had much regular season luck there, going 15-for-70 (.214) with just two home runs. That’s the fewest home runs he’s hit in any ballpark that he’s played at least 20 games in.
However, this isn’t the regular season, and Judge has had success in Cleveland before. The 2022 ALDS saw him homer in Game 3 at Progressive Field. He did the same in a wild card matchup back in 2020.
The Yankees are hoping that those trips to Cleveland — and Judge’s Game 2 bomb — are a sign of things to come as they look to advance.
However, the slugger won’t linger on one homer, even if it was long awaited.
“If you do something good, hey, it’s great,” Judge said. “But once you hit that homer and touch home plate, that moment’s over with and you’ve got to move on to the next one.
“Just don’t make any moment too big, man. It’s still the same game we play and we’ve been playing our whole life. So that’s how I try to treat it.”
