It was, at last, a postseason game that was all about Aaron Judge.
In ways that were all positive.
And if the Yankees end up winning this American League Division Series, a game their fans won’t let him forget long after his career in pinstripes is done.
Judge, already with a Hall of Fame resume but lacking a signature October moment, delivered one Tuesday night when then Yankees desperately needed it.
The two-time AL MVP rocked a game-tying three-run homer off the foul pole in left in the fourth inning, capping a Yankees comeback from five runs down going into the third.
The Stadium sellout crowd of 47,399, and the home dugout, erupted into hysterics. An inning later, Jazz Chisholm Jr. blasted a go-ahead homer into the second deck in right that gave the Yankees the lead for good en route to a season-saving 9-6 victory over a slipshod Blue Jays team that paved the road to the comeback with two crucial errors.
Cam Schlittler, who struck out 12 Red Sox over eight scoreless innings of a deciding Game 3 victory in the Wild Card Series, gets the ball Wednesday night to try and send this series back to Rogers Centre for Game 5. The Blue Jays, whose relievers collectively have arrived on the mound with gas canisters this series, are likely to go with a bullpen game Wednesday.
Neither starter made it through three innings Tuesday. Carlos Rodon went just 2 1/3 innings, allowing six runs, six hits and two walks. Toronto righthander Shane Bieber lasted 2 2/3 innings, allowing three runs (two earned), five hits and one walk.
But a Yankees bullpen that has been suspect much of the season and into the postseason was up to the herculean task of holding down a Blue Jays lineup responsible for outscoring the Yankees, 23-8, in the first two games of the series.
Fernando Cruz, Camilo Doval, Tim Hill and Devin Williams passed the baton to David Bednar, who came on with one out in the eighth and struck out two of five batters in recording the save.
A half-inning after tying the game with his three-run shot off a Louis Varland 100-mph 0-and-2 fastball, Judge came through on defense.
With Ernie Clement on second after a double, Judge made a diving catch in right on an Anthony Santander liner for the second out of the fifth. Hill stranded the runner, and Chisholm, with one out in the bottom half, sent a 1-and-1, 99-mph Varland fastball 409 feet to right to give the Yankees a 7-6 lead. Wells’ two-out RBI single later in the inning made it 8-6.
Judge, who went 3-for-4 with the homer and an RBI double, was intentionally walked in the sixth and came in to score after a Cody Bellinger double and a sacrifice fly by Ben Rice to make it 9-6.
Vlad Guerrero Jr., 6-for-9 with two homers the first two games of this series, hit a two-run shot off Rodon in the first inning to give the Blue Jays a 2-0 lead.
Judge singled in the bottom half and scored later in the inning on a single by Giancarlo Stanton, 3-for-20 to that point in the postseason. The run was unearned as second baseman Isiah Kiner-Falefa, a former Yankee, booted a Rice grounder that should have been the third out.
The Blue Jays jettisoned Rodon in the third. Davis Schneider led off with a double and Guerrero was intentionally walked. Alejandro Kirk lined softly to right and Daulton Varsho blooped one to left-center where Bellinger failed to make a sliding catch, the ball glancing off his glove. Schneider advanced just steps from third base and would have been doubled off had Bellinger made the catch. But he headed for home when centerfielder Trent Grisham threw the ball back into second rather than to the plate. That made it 3-1 and a single to left by Clement, who grew up a Yankees fan in Rochester, drove in Guerrero to make it 4-1. Santander, who routinely hit Yankees pitching during his years with the Orioles, ended Rodon’s night by slashing a two-run single that made it 6-1.
The Yankees put together a critical rally in the bottom half to stay in the game. Grisham, after the Yankees lost their second and final challenge claiming the hitter was the victim of catcher’s interference, doubled into the corner in right. With Judge up, Bieber spiked a slider to advance Grisham. Judge rifled an RBI double to left to make it 6-2 and Bellinger flared a single to center to put runners at the corners. Rice grounded sharply to first where Guerrero threw home to get Judge, who was caught in a rundown and tagged out 3-2-5-3. Stanton’s deep sacrifice fly to center made it 6-3.
Erik Boland started in Newsday’s sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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