Yankees win AL East title with 10-1 victory over Orioles behind Judge, Stanton and Cole

NEW YORK (AP) — With spritzes of white and gold bottles of Luc Belaire Rare Luxe sparkling wine dripping down his 6-foot-1 frame, Aaron Judge savored the moment.

“Nothing is ever guaranteed,” the New York Yankees captain said.

Judge hit his 58th major league home runwent deep for the fifth straight game to help that happen The Yankees defeated the Baltimore Orioles 10-1 on Thursday night and close out the AL East with three games to go.

Very different from the rapid decline in 2023 to a record of 82-80, which was almost the Pinstripes' first loss since 1992.

“It hurts that I came up short last year,” said Judge. “It hurts just as much as any other year not to win a World Series, but this one hurt a little more. That’s why we wanted to make a statement, come back here and put ourselves in a good position for the postseason.”

After winning their 21st division title, including the first half of the 1981 split season, the Yankees (93-66) will play their 59th postseason on October 5 at home in a best-of-five division series against a winner of the Wild – Card round.

Last year, the Yankees missed the playoffs for the first time since 2016, when Judge made his big league debut in mid-August.

Judges Juan Soto, Giancarlo Stanton and Gerrit Cole all know that Yankees are judged not by division titles but by World Series rings, like Yogi Berra's 10, Joe DiMaggio's nine and Derek Jeter's five.

They wore T-shirts that said “We own the East” and “American League” in smaller font in the middle. But if they want to win their 28th World Series title and first since 2009, three more celebrations will be necessary.

Manager Aaron Boone shortened his remarks in the clubhouse after the game.

“I said a few things and then they just wanted to start spraying,” he remembers.

After a season full of ups and downs, New York secured no less than a wild card spot on September 18th and celebrated with a lively clubhouse party in Seattle. The Yankees were 50-22 in mid-June, remained 30-38 through early September and have won 13 of their last 19.

“You can’t, you can’t take this for granted at all,” Stanton said. “That’s certainly to be expected, but in times like last year it didn’t happen. So you have to appreciate it. We are here now. Enjoy it. You never know if you’ll ever get a chance to do it again.”

New York came home this week needing a win to clinch the AL East crown, but lost consecutive games to second-place Baltimore, 88-71, putting celebration on hold. The Yankees ended the Orioles' one-year reign atop the division, leaving the Orioles with a wild-card spot.

“I don’t think we were necessarily the choice,” Boone said. “Understandable. We had a lot to prove last year.”

Judge increased his RBI total to 144, the most in the major leagues since Ryan Howard's 146 in 2008. Stanton hit his 27th home run and had four RBIs, and Cole pitched 6 2/3 innings of two-hit ball To surpass Corbin Burnes (15-9) in a matchup of Cy Young Award winners.

Cole, the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner, did not make his first start of the season until June 19, having been sidelined since spring training due to nerve irritation and edema in his throwing arm. He finished 8-5 with a 3.41 ERA.

“You just feel alive. It's the best feeling. There is a lot at stake. The juices are flowing,” Cole said. “Last year was a humbling experience. It reminds you that the game is really tough and this season has been tough for us too, even though we got the win here with a few games to go.”

At the end of the game, after Cedric Mullins hit a groundout to shortstop Anthony Volpe, who threw to first baseman Anthony Rizzo, the Yankees came out of the dugout and formed a short hop group between the mound and second base. A large portion of the 42,022 spectators stood ready for a long ovation.

Trying to challenge AL Central champion Cleveland for home-field advantage in the American League playoffs, the Yankees hold a one-game lead and are ahead of the Guardians (92-67) in the tiebreaker.

“I start banging on the desk with our guys from day one: 'It's coming for us.' We believe we will do special things this year, but along the way we will also have moments of truth in a great season that hopefully ends with the championship. We will face adversity. We are facing difficult times. We have to be prepared to deal with it,” Boone said. “We had a lot of moments where we had to test our gut, a tough loss or a rough patch, and these guys really just stayed the course.”

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