Judge Looking For Solid Post Season
Photo: Special To The NY Beacon
By Matthew Kennedy
Ace Cole To Start In ALDS vs Kansas City
Photo: Special to the NY Beacon
The New York Yankees clinched the AL East for the second time in three years, edging out the Baltimore Orioles in a season-long battle. New York held onto the division lead for the first 3 months of the season, with the young Orioles hot on their tails. By the end of July, they had been in second place for a month after a 10-22 slump, but managed to reclaim the lead in mid-August. The Yanks made some small changes that proved effective and helped them close out the season strong, holding onto first place for the final three weeks. An increase in timely hitting from the supporting cast, drastic improvements from Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon, as well as hot streaks from Aaron Judge and Gleyber Torres, propelled the Yankees past the Wild Card round and into the postseason.
The importance of the Yankees getting a bye cannot be understated – the franchise has failed to make the ALCS for four of the past five times it has secured a Wild Card berth. Luckily right now, New York can sit back and wait to face either the Orioles, or the dark horse Kansas City Royals, in the division round. This year’s ALDS title marks the Yankees’ third in the past 13 seasons, a stark difference from the 13 years prior, where they captured the division a whopping 10 times. Aaron Judge, the Yanks first captain since Derek Jeter, will look to add the most important accomplishment yet to his illustrious career – a World Series ring. Eight of the last nine Yankee captains won a championship with the franchise, and the pressure is on Judge, perhaps the greatest hitter of the century, to deliver this October. As he once said, “I’d rather be in a good position in the playoffs and holding up a World Series trophy than holding up an MVP trophy.”
With Yankee ace Gerrit Cole starting to look like his old self again, much more hope surrounds the team’s pitching. Despite Nestor Cortes’s likely season-ending injury, multiple other pitchers had strong finishes to the year, including Rodon, who posted a 2.20 ERA in his final 5 starts. Clarke Schmidt, who had a great start to the year but was sidetracked with injury, has looked solid since his return and will have to be a reliable middle-of-the-pack starter if he wants his team to make a championship run.
Cole waits quietly to start game 1 of the ALDS, holding a spotty postseason track record in the Bronx, having given up 9 homers in 7 games started. The same can be said for Judge, who has a .772 OPS in the playoffs compared to a 1.010 regular season one. .772 is a respectable mark for almost any other player, but for Aaron Judge, who has also fallen short in big moments all throughout his playoff career (one thinks back to the 2021 baserunning blunder against the Red Sox) it looks abysmal. These two performances in the playoffs, as well as newly appointed closer Luke Weaver’s, are the biggest what if’s for New York heading into October. Weaver has emerged as the team’s sharpest weapon in the bullpen, after Clay Holmes led the league in blown saves and finally lost Aaron Boone’s trust with 3 of them in the span of 3 weeks. Being a closer is the most high-pressure job in the game, and it’s not to say Holmes can’t still be used in certain situations – he did end the season allowing zero runs in five appearances – but in this scenario it seems like a fresh go-to closer is for the best. The skipper, Aaron Boone, has this to say about his new fireman: Where’d he get the mental grit to keep persevering? Is it learned? “Oh, it’s built in, my friend,” You get kicked in the teeth enough times and you gotta get back up, right?”
The Royals took out the O’s in the best-of three Wild Card series, a team that hasn’t faced the Yankees in October since 1980. Kansas City was a +420 underdog to make the playoffs this preseason, and have shocked everyone this year with their tenacity and grit. They have been led by Judge’s sole competitor for the AL MVP, Bobby Witt Jr., who had the greatest offensive season by a shortstop since Alex Rodriguez’s 1996 campaign in Seattle. The 24-year-old would have taken home MVP honors in almost any other season, if not for Judge’s ridiculous year at the plate.
If the Yankees advance to the ALCS, they will face the Detroit Tigers who eliminated the Houston Astros or the Cleveland Guardians who had a bye as they won the Central division.
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