CLEVELAND — For most of the postseason, the questions were about Aaron Judge’s failure to come through while the Yankees were winning.
After their toughest playoff loss in years, Judge came up with one of the biggest homers of his career.
And it came against the top closer in the game.
But the Yankees squandered the back-to-back homers by Judge and Giancarlo Stanton that first tied the game and then gave them the lead in the bottom of the eighth in a 7-5, 10-inning loss to Cleveland in Game 3 to cut their series lead in the ALCS to 2-1.
The homers came off of Emmanuel Clase, the closer who allowed just two during the entire regular season.
“I was just trying to get on base with a single to right,” Judge said of his approach during his game-tying at-bat. “Especially with Stanton behind me. When you’ve got a guy like that that’s [throwing] 102 mph, you don’t try to do too much.”
The result was a shot to right-center that skipped off the top of the fence and into the stands for his second home run in as many games after Judge started the postseason just 2-for-17.
“I thought it was too low,” Judge said. “So my first thought was to be on second base for [Stanton].”
Stanton followed with his third home run of this postseason to give the Yankees what proved to be a short-lived lead and instead of going down in Yankee lore, the heroics of the two sluggers were wasted thanks to Luke Weaver giving up a two-run shot to Jhonkensy Noel in the bottom of the ninth that tied the game and Clay Holmes allowing the game-winner to David Fry in the 10th.
Judge’s blast followed a walk to Juan Soto by Hunter Gaddis, which brought in Clase.
“He’s the best closer in the game for a reason,’’ Judge said of Clase.
Not good enough on Thursday.
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“Aaron Judge is one of the best hitters on this planet,’’ Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt said. “It was a fun matchup to watch. Like I said, I wish it would have gone the other way, but we’re fortunate that we got this one and we’re going to be ready to go [Friday].”
And Vogt said he hadn’t lost faith in Clase, who also struggled in the ALDS against Detroit.
“Emmanuel has been perfect,’’ Vogt said. “We couldn’t have asked for anything more from Emmanuel all year and he is going to be right back out there in the ninth [Friday] night. He’s human.’’
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