'You know it's coming': Aaron Judge's homer spurs Yankees over Guardians for 2-0 ALCS lead

NEW YORK — They are stacking wins methodically and adding heroes to the mix almost nightly, and as the New York Yankees track toward their first World Series appearance since 2009, it’s growing apparent they will lean on all 26 men on their roster to win their 28 ^th championship.

Tuesday night, in Game 2 of their American League Championship Series , New York nudged a handful of key performers closer to center stage in winning the sort of artless, methodical slog necessary to survive October.

It just happened that the latest one is the expected AL MVP.

Aaron Judge provided the capper to their latest triumph, waiting until this ALCS was nearly 21 innings old before putting his stamp on it: A 414-foot drive, launched at a towering 37 degrees over the wall and above Monument Park in right center field, providing the breathing room the Yankees have lacked in this postseason run.

When the ball finally landed, the Yankees had a four-run, seventh-inning lead on their way to an eventual 6-3 triumph and what looks like a commanding 2-0 lead in this ALCS.

Game 3 is Thursday at Cleveland’s Progressive Field, and as the series grows older, the Yankees’ advantages only seem to bloom anew.

Their leadoff hitter, Gleyber Torres, is unstoppable: He had three more hits in Game 2, is reaching base at a .448 clip in this postseason and has scored more than a quarter of the Yankees’ runs this postseason.

Their bullpen, led by lithe but lethal closer Luke Weaver, is indomitable: They’ve pitched to a 0.77 ERA in 23 1/3 innings, and picked up for ace Gerrit Cole to cover the final 4 2/3 innings Tuesday in two-hit, one-run fashion.

Their lineup is now, almost 1 through 9, whole and hearty, what with Anthony Rizzo bouncing off the injured list and rapping three hits in his first seven at-bats, as if he’d never broken two fingers at season’s end.

And now, their captain has checked in.

“You know it’s coming,” says reliever Clay Holmes, the demoted closer who has simply turned into a near-perfect set-up guy – with 6 2/3 scoreless innings in tight spots this postseason.

“If he keeps swinging, it’s going to happen. He’s Aaron Judge. We’ve been watching it for years. There’s zero doubt, as teammates, who Aaron Judge is going to be for us.”

Indeed, the disconnect between public perception and Judge’s actual contribution can become a gulf come October. As others flourish, it’s easy to forget that Judge will always be the one pitched to the toughest, offered the fewest pitches to hit, and the name that will be in the 50-point headlines if he flails and fails.

Shrugging off public perception and turning in quality at-bats is a daunting balancing act, yet Judge manages. Coming into Game 2, he was batting .133 with no homers and one lousy RBI this postseason. Panic numbers!

Yet he’d also drawn a half dozen walks and posted a .364 OBP – healthy contributions to a team that’s now 6-1 this postseason.

“When he's going well,” says Rizzo after Game 2, “he's still working on his swing and tweaking things and going about his business the same way when he's, quote, unquote, not going well. 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.

“Whatever the narrative outside of this is the narrative, but inside, he does not falter from who he is every day.”

The payoff came in the seventh inning, the Yankees clinging to a 4-2 lead, and Cleveland’s second-best reliever, Hunter Gaddis, on to keep it a series. At that point, it was already a weird yet productive night for Judge: His wind-blown first-inning pop-up, sent a mile high, was butchered upon reentry by Cleveland shortstop Brayan Rocchio, an error that resulted in a run.

An inning later, a strange indignity: Juan Soto was walked intentionally to load the bases for ... Judge?

On paper, he could have taken it personally. In reality, Cleveland was going all-in in the second inning, bringing in relief ace Cade Smith to stanch the bleeding in a 2-0 game. Again, Judge connected, sent it high and far enough for a sacrifice fly.

Turns out it was a harbinger for the seventh-inning shot that turned Yankee Stadium into a madhouse, flipped the scoreboard to 6-2 and sent his teammates into a told-you-so stance.

“Always. Always,” says reliever Tim Hill. “Always a matter of time with Aaron.”

That’s the kind of rep one earns after hitting an AL-record 62 homers in 2022, and a 58-homer, 1.152 OPS campaign this year. Yet none of his nine seasons have ended with a championship, let alone in the World Series.

This year is already looking a lot different – especially as the Yankees only get better at winning the ugly ones.

Should the Yankees win six more games and claim their 28 ^th World Series, there will surely be documentaries and Yankeeographies and perhaps a book or two written about the club that broke a 15-year championship drought. Those accounts will likely feature precious little detail from this Game 2, and that’s just as well.

Cole was not great even as he tossed four shutout innings but allowed 10 baserunners to reach; the traffic finally caught up to him in the fifth, which he could not escape without Holmes recording the final two outs.

Rizzo and Jazz Chisholm each were picked off second base after smacking doubles. Two of the Yankees’ runs came thanks to Guardians fielding gaffes.

Leave it to Judge to provide the artistry.

“You never know on these windy, chilly nights what that ball is going to do when you hit the center here,” says Judge, who moved past Stanton with his 14 ^th career playoff home run, “but the ghosts were pulling out there to Monument Park, that's for sure.”

He’ll never be simply a cog in this operation. Yet the lesson the Yankees are imparting is that it will take all of them to end this title drought, from the superstar who brought the house down to the parade of relievers taking the hill.

Tuesday, it was Hill who received a standing ovation from the crowd after his five-up, five-down performance took down the sixth inning and part of the seventh. Moments later, a more familiar face would take center stage.

“It’s a tough game,” says Judge. “It’s a humbling game.

“It's going to take everybody if we're going to get to where we want to go.”

Even the superstars.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'You know it's coming': Aaron Judge's homer spurs Yankees over Guardians for 2-0 ALCS lead