Judge hits 58 home runs and rests, PS's career batting average of 0.203 What should I do...One win left for the Yankees' ALCS

Oct 10, 2024

Judge hits 58 home runs and rests, PS's career batting average of 0.203 What should I do...One win left for the Yankees' ALCS
New York Yankees Aaron Judge is preparing to defend after being out by center fielder fla in the fifth inning in Game 3 of the Division Series against the Kansas City Royals on the 10th (Korea time). ImagesYonhap News


The New York Yankees have one win left to advance to the league championship.

The Yankees won the third game of the American League Division Series (DS) against the Kansas City Royals at Kaufman Stadium on the 10th (Korea time) thanks to Giancarlo Stanton's winning home run and led the series 2-1 overall.

If the Yankees add one win, they will advance to the Championship Series (ALCS) for the first time in two years following 2022. In that year, he beat the Cleveland Guardians 3–2 in the DS and reached the ALCS, but knelt down to the Houston Astros with four losses.

The Yankees, who won the first game 6-5 and then gave up the second game 2-4, had to play a tight game in the third game as well.

Starter Clark Schmidt minimized the run until the middle of the game with four hits and two runs in four ⅔ innings, and the must-win group, which leads to Clay Holmes, Tommy Canley and Luke Weaver, completely blocked the remaining four ⅓ with two hits and no runs.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone quickly changed the pitcher when Schmidt, who pitched well until the fourth inning, gave up an infield hit to Adam Frazier after two outs in the fifth inning with a 0-2 lead, and was beaten by Kyle Izbel and Michael Mash in succession with double and triple to tie the game 2-2.

Canley took the mound in the seventh inning and won relief with no hits and no runs in the first ½, and Weaver went out after one out in the eighth inning and finished the game with two hits and no runs in the first ⅔.

Judge hits 58 home runs and rests, PS's career batting average of 0.203 What should I do...One win left for the Yankees' ALCS
Yankees Giancarlo Stanton hits a solo home run in the top of the eighth inning. UPI Yonhap News
The Yankees scored the first run in the top of the fourth inning. After the leadoff Juan Soto walked, Stanton pulled Kansas City starter Seth Lugo's 91.3-mile body sinker for a double that hit the bottom of the left-center fence to bring Soto in.

In the fifth inning, Soto hit a sacrifice fly to center field in the second and third bases with one out made by Anthony Wolfie's heavy hit, Oswaldo Cabrera's walk, and Alex Verdugo's sacrifice bunt to lead 2-0. However, as Kansas City tied the game in the bottom of the fifth inning, the game flowed into a tight pitching match.

The Yankees scored the winning run when Stanton hit a solo home run after one out in the top of the eighth inning when the 2-2 balance continued. With the ball count of 3B1S, the opponent left-hander Chris Bubic rolled up an 85.2 mile slider toward his body to draw a large arch with a firing angle of 35 degrees, a batting speed of 112.9 miles and a flying distance of 417. Stanton's first home run of the postseason.

The postseason at Kaufman Stadium was the first time in 3,268 days since Game 2 of the World Series between Kansas City and the New York Mets in 2015, and 40,312 Kansas City fans gathered on the day, but they had to turn away after seeing a disappointing loss.

On this day, Yankees Aaron Judge, an AL MVP reservation, remained silent. He went 0-for-4 with only one walk. In the three DS games, he recorded one hit in 11 at-bats (0.091) with three walks and five strikeouts. Judge has a postseason career batting average of 0.203 (37 hits in 182 times at bat), 13 homers, 25 RBIs, 30 runs scored, and an OPS of 0.748.

Judge has 58 home runs, 144 RBIs and an OPS of 1.159 in the regular season, making him the second MVP of his career after 2022.





jhno@sportschosun.com