As Yankees reach ALDS, pressure grows for Aaron Judge to deliver playoff moment | Politi

He didn’t make any explosions with his bat in this short-but-stressful postseason series, but when the Yankees recorded the final out of the AL Wild Card Series on Thursday night, Aaron Judge let one loose with his mouth.

“BOOM!” he yelled from his spot in right field, pumping his fist once before jogging toward the mound to join his celebrating teammates.

The list of heroes for the home team in this season-extending 4-0 victory is a long one. It starts with Cam Schlittler, of course, who only had one of the greatest postseason starts in baseball history. It continues with Cody Bellinger, who sparked a four-run fourth-inning rally by turning a harmless-looking blooper to right field into a double. It even includes Ryan McMahon, who landed in the Boston dugout after a head-over-heels catch in the eighth that reminded the Red Sox, once and for all, there would be no rally.

As for Judge himself?

Well, he looked like the happiest man in the Bronx when it ended, pointing to the sky with both index fingers and sighing in relief before joining the handshake line. He was mostly a passenger on this dramatic little journey, scrunching his 6-foot-7 frame into the back seat as others did the driving.

He will not have that luxury anymore. He understands that better than anyone.

The Yankees earned the right to pop some corks, for sure, but the only thing they really accomplished was averting a true disaster. No one around this franchise can be satisfied with eliminating a mediocre Red Sox team on Oct. 2 — least of all Judge, who needs that championship ring to cement his place in franchise history.

The real postseason begins this weekend in Toronto, and the expectations remain unchanged. It doesn’t matter that the Yankees were the final team to reach the American League divisional round. They’ll be the favorites to reach the World Series, and the reason was on display for two and a half hours Thursday night.

The despair from losing Game 1 of this series turned to hope for a special run each time the 24-year-old Schlittler delivered a pitch. The way he mowed through the Red Sox with 12 strikeouts, it looks like the Yankees have the kind of elite starting rotation capable of ending their 15-year championship drought.

“It’s pitching. That’s how you win, man,” Yankees legend Derek Jeter said, well, probably after every postseason game he played in his career.

No one here is arguing with No. 2 on this point. But it is safe to say that the Yankees are going to need something from No. 99 if they’re going to advance deep into October against an AL field — Blue Jays? Tigers? Mariners? — that’s hardly formidable.

This is Judge’s time to shine. Oh, he was fine in this Wild Card Series, but four singles and an RBI in 11 at-bats over the three games isn’t what the Yankees have come to expect from a player who might win his fourth MVP in a few weeks. He needs to have the October that everyone has expected from him for the past several seasons.

“There’s a lot of belief in each other. We know what kind of team we have,” Judge said as the champagne dripped off his forehead in the Yankees clubhouse. “The (Blue Jays) had our number in the regular season, just like the Red Sox did. People wanted to talk about that. We just have to focus on what we’ve got to do.”

If that was the ultimate baseball Goliath hoping for a little motivation as David in this upcoming series, well, good luck with that.

Judge’s postseason struggles will be the biggest story line, as usual, in the American League Division Series. In his 61 career playoff games, Judge is hitting just .212 with 49 hits, 16 homers, 35 RBIs and 37 runs scored with an OPS of .768 — numbers that are a country mile from his otherworldly regular-season production levels.

He has three home run titles. He has a batting title. He has fourth place on the all-time Yankees home run list behind names — Ruth, Mantle, Gehrig — that are synonymous with Yankee greatness. The 33-year-old has everything but the championship, and if manager Aaron Boone is correct that this is the “most talented” team he’s had in the Bronx, this might be his best opportunity to complete his resume.

“I want that burden,” Judge said when asked about the pressure that he brings into every October game, “because if I can take the weight off of other guys in this room so they go out there and produce and kind of fly under the radar and just do their job, then we have a better overall team.”

Maybe that’s what happened in this wild-card matchup. The Yankees didn’t need their best player to be a superstar to beat the Red Sox, a positive development in a night filled with them. Schlittler, Bellinger, McMahon and the rest did the job.

“NEXT STOP: ALDS” the scoreboard at Yankee Stadium flashed as the clock approached midnight in the Bronx. The postseason journey really begins now, and for it to continue deep into October, Aaron Judge can’t be a passenger anymore.

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