62, page 33
Judge could live with that. He did lead the majors in runs (133), homers (62), runs batted in (131), on-base percentage (.425), slugging percentage (.686), OPS (1.111), OPS+ (211), and total bases (391), while pacing the AL with 111 walks. A television screen displaying MLB Network hung in the visiting clubhouse at Globe Life Field, and a couple of the talking heads were discussing Judge’s numbers that morning, within earshot of the player himself. You didn’t need an expert to tell you that these were video game statistics, produced in a season of deflated league-wide offense.
“You can look on the back of anybody’s baseball card and see the stats, see the numbers, see the records and everything they break,” Judge said. “Ultimately, for me, it’s about those relationships you build with your teammates and the fans. I want to be remembered not only as a great teammate, but a great competitor and a friend that they can count on.”
As he accepted a few more congratulations during the morning of the final regular season game, Judge made a point to seek out Kay, complimenting the announcer on his call for No. 62. Truth be told, Kay preferred his calls for Nos. 60 and 61, believing that he had rushed through No. 62 because it left the ballpark so quickly. But he was thrilled that Judge liked it.
“That meant the world to me. That was the only criticism that I cared about,” Kay said. “He said, ‘That was a really good call. You did a great job.’ That made me happy, because he’s the one who had to like it. His family has to live with it, will be connected to it for all time. The fact that he said it made me proud, and I felt that I’d done my job.”
The Yankees were looking toward the playoffs, eyeing an upcoming Wild Card Game between the Cleveland Guardians and Tampa Bay Rays that would determine their next opponent, while also warily looking forward to a potential showdown with the Astros. Judge spent most of the game relaxing in the clubhouse and said that he hadn’t heard the fans chanting “We want Judge!” in the ninth inning, clamoring for one more at-bat.
Judge had already closed the book on his regular season statistics. At that point, the only number he cared about was No. 28.
14
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
There were several adjectives to describe Brian Cashman’s demeanor after the club’s workout at Yankee Stadium, four days before the scheduled start of the American League Division Series against the Cleveland Guardians. As he paced in manager Aaron Boone’s office, just outside the Yankees’ clubhouse, the longtime general manager could accurately be described as furious, irate, disappointed, or distressed. He was not, however, surprised.
Cashman and Boone had just spoken via telephone with Aroldis Chapman, seeking an explanation for why the left-hander had missed a mandatory team workout in the Bronx. They gave him the benefit of the doubt; perhaps Chapman had a family emergency or some other development the club was unaware of. They reached the pitcher at his home near Miami, Florida, where the thirty-four-year-old had traveled after the regular season finale on October 5 in Arlington, Texas. That was fine; all players had the green light to skip the charter flight back to New York if desired, as long as they would be back in the Bronx for the workout.
When attendance was taken, Chapman was the team’s only no-show, the only such occurrence Cashman could recall in his twenty-four years as a general manager. Chapman’s confidence had been irreparably shaken, dented by the injuries and ineffectiveness that allowed Clay Holmes to take over as the club’s closer. He would only travel to New York, he said, if Boone and Cashman promised to include him on the twenty-six-man ALDS roster.
“I was like, ‘Are you shitting me? What did he say?’ ” Cashman said. “He didn’t want to come back unless he was guaranteed to be on the postseason roster. We hadn’t even had our meetings yet; we weren’t playing for another five days. We told him we were going to go through the week and then make our decisions. As it turned out, he probably would have been on the roster.”
It seemed an ignominious end to Chapman’s Yankees tenure, which yielded three All-Star appearances and 153 saves. The Cuban fireballer had arrived in a trade with the Cincinnati Reds during the 2015–16 off-season, then returned after helping the Chicago Cubs win the 2016 World Series. Yet Chapman’s time in New York would be remembered most for high-profile failures, particularly his stunned expression after surrendering a José Altuve home run that ended the 2017 American League Championship Series. The infected leg that had sent him to the injured list in August, after Chapman had received an ill-advised in-season tattoo, ranked a close second. “The thing of it is, we probably would have carried him,” Cashman said, noting that relievers Scott Effross and Ron Marinaccio missed the playoffs due to injuries. Instead, Chapman was off the team. Months later, after signing with the Kansas City Royals, Chapman would explain the situation as a “miscommunication” and admit that he had been wrong. “When you add everything up, it’s not surprising,” Cashman said. “There’s some questions about whether he’s been all in or not for a little while. He’s maintained verbally that he’s in, but his actions don’t match those words.”
As the Yankees prepared for their most important games of the season, Aaron Judge organized one last team event, booking a private room at TAO, an upscale Asian fusion restaurant in New York City. Judge clinked a glass and made a brief speech to a packed house of teammates and staffers, attempting to pump up the battles to come.
There was thumping music as the guys munched on sushi and finger food, refusing to let him out of the building without toasting his special season once more. They would never forget the year that Judge hit 62, and they appreciated being a part of history.
“It was really, really good,” said Clarke Schmidt. “It was a lot of fun, kind of like a little surprise type thing. I would say almost every guy was there. It was great to have one more team event, just being able to celebrate him. I’m sure it was an emotional time for him, so it was good to have Sam there and a lot of people who have been with him since Day 1.”
* * *
The AL Division Series opened in New York on October 11, with Terry Francona’s Cleveland Guardians having swept the Tampa Bay Rays in a two-game series to advance past the Wild Card round. The deciding contest between Cleveland and Tampa Bay had been an incredible fifteen-inning battle, with Cleveland’s Oscar Gonzalez homering for the game’s only run.
That alone put the Guardians at a disadvantage when they arrived in New York, a team that hardly homered now matched against a club that went deep more than anyone. The Yankees had pounded Cleveland during the regular season, outscoring the Guardians, 38–14, while winning five of six games.
The series seemed to be a mismatch on paper—Cleveland really was just happy to be there. Francona said that if anyone back in spring training could have guaranteed him that the Guardians would be playing in the ALDS: “Shoot, I might have jogged to New York.”
The lights darkened before the first pitch of Game 1 at Yankee Stadium, leaving only shadows as a solitary figure raced across the outfield grass. The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” rattled the sound system as the lights came up, revealing Nick Swisher, who draped Judge’s No. 99 across his back while waving a large blue flag with the interlocking “NY” logo.
Swisher was synonymous with the Yankees’ 2009 World Series championship, then a switch-hitting outfielder who seemed to treat every day with the excitement of his tenth birthday party. Sure, having him essentially serve as a team mascot was a little silly, but it also felt fresh and fun, a radical departure from the traditional pomp and circumstance usually trotted out for postseason games in the Bronx.
“That was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done,” Swisher said. “I’m out there high-fiving the West Point cadets, and they’re like, ‘You’ve got to go, bro!’ Then I’m out there waving the flag, running as fast as I can on these knees now. I’ve still got that [moment] as one of my screen savers. How many people can say they’ve done that?”
In Game 1, Harrison Bader and Anthony Rizzo homered as Gerrit Cole rose to the occasion, marking his first Yankee Stadium postseason start in pinstripes. On the winter morning he set pen to paper in December 2019, agreeing to the largest contract ever issued to a free-agent pitcher, Cole would never have anticipated it might take that long to experience the thrill of a Bronx postseason crowd. The pandemic-shortened 2020 season and an all-too-brief ’21 playoff run kept Cole from living his boyhood dream, but as the ovation came in loud and strong, rolling in waves from the ballpark’s faraway decks, Cole reached for the bill of his cap and doffed it ever so slightly. He had done his job, and done it well.
“It was very special for me,” Cole said. “The game’s not over, so it’s not the most comfortable time to acknowledge the crowd, but I certainly felt it and appreciated it. I thought they were in every pitch. What a wonderful experience to have them behind us.”
Major League Baseball built in a scheduled off day, so the teams sat idle on a crisp and clear Thursday afternoon, awaiting their Friday-evening date. When game time arrived, no one with access to a weather forecast was surprised by the outcome: steady rain and fog arrived in the Bronx around 4:00 p.m., prompting a postponement. Given a night’s rest in their New York hotel, the Guardians responded with a 4–2, ten-inning win in Game 2. The Yankees had not expected to fast-forward through the ALDS; they held too much respect for the level of competition in what Boone called “the highest level in the land.” An early Giancarlo Stanton home run off Shane Bieber suggested they might blast their way to a healthy series advantage, but the Bombers’ bats went quiet and a couple of costly tenth-inning bloops off the bats of José Ramírez and Oscar Gonzalez found grass. Judge did not panic, remarking, “We’ve had adversity throughout this whole long season on our way to winning the division. This isn’t anything new to us.”
Having made his postseason debut with five solid innings, Nestor Cortes promised that the Yankees would soon “punch back.” Still, it already seemed notable that Judge’s historic regular season had not carried over into the playoffs. He struck out four times in Game 2 and was 0-for-8 with seven strikeouts and a walk through the first two games, hearing boos from a crowd of 47,535 at Yankee Stadium, a scene that would’ve been unthinkable a week prior. “Just a little late,” Judge said. “When you’re a little late, you’re missing pitches that you usually do damage on. You’re swinging at stuff that you usually don’t.”
Alex Rodriguez, serving as an analyst for FOX, was among those clamoring for Boone and the analytics department to remove Judge from the leadoff spot. On the air, the three-time AL MVP referred to the Yanks’ lineup construction as “gimmicky baseball,” saying no serious team should go into a playoff game with its best hitter hitting first.
“Babe Ruth didn’t do it. Barry Bonds didn’t do it,” Rodriguez said. “It doesn’t exist. The reason why is you want to protect [Judge]. You play chess; it’s like the queen on the chessboard. You want to put the best two hitters in front, and the best two hitters behind, and protect. The Yankees are putting the worst two hitters, the eighth and ninth hitter, and it puts an enormous amount of pressure [on Judge].”
Boone seemed miserable as the series moved to Cleveland for Game 3, and it had nothing to do with A-Rod trying to fill out his lineup card. Dating to the mid-September series in Milwaukee, the manager had been carrying a dry, hacking cough; in fact, much of the traveling party seemed to be ping-ponging it around, and a few of the reporters stopped complaining about the mask mandate for media members that would remain in place through the end of the 2022 postseason. As he sat in the visiting clubhouse at Progressive Field, Boone gestured toward half-consumed bottles of DayQuil and NyQuil, promising guests to his work space that the situation was improving. It didn’t seem to be, and one kindhearted writer made a habit of offering cough drops ahead of Boone’s pregame availability.
“My God, he was sick forever,” said Kristie Ackert of the New York Daily News. “I remember we were on the field in Texas and he was coming out to do a TV interview, just hacking away. I had those cough drops in my pocket and I was like, ‘Please, just try this.’ We get special cough drops from Ireland—they’re called Jakemans, and you can get them here, but they’re not as strong. The next time I saw him, he’s like, ‘You got any of that good stuff?’ ”
As he sucked on a cooling menthol lozenge, Boone claimed not to have heard whatever Rodriguez had said on the air, but Judge was out of the top spot. Judge had hit leadoff for twenty-five straight games, beginning on September 9, and now Gleyber Torres was getting a turn as the table setter. It showed how different the Yankees’ lineup looked without DJ LeMahieu and Andrew Benintendi healthy, removing a pair of reliable, contact-oriented bats. Boone claimed that he “just kind of woke up on it,” believing hitting second might allow Judge to settle into the game’s flow. He added that, even without LeMahieu and Benintendi, the roster felt “a little more whole” than ten days prior, a factor in his decision to change the order.
Judge responded with his 63rd home run of the year, a game-tying two-run shot off right-hander Triston McKenzie in the third inning. It was Judge’s 12th career postseason homer, tying him for fifth place on the franchise list with Yogi Berra and Reggie Jackson, and one of three long balls the Yankees hit that night. Yet the outcome was a 6–5 loss, which Boone described as “a gut-wrenching ending.”
New York held a two-run lead in the ninth inning, but a fatiguing Wandy Peralta appeared to be on the ropes. The phone rang in the visitors’ bullpen and pitching coach Matt Blake’s voice crackled through the earpiece, identifying Clarke Schmidt as the choice to warm up. No one was more surprised than Clay Holmes. Boone had bypassed his All-Star closer in favor of Schmidt, handing the twenty-six-year-old rookie the most challenging assignment of his young career.
It did not go well. With runners at the corners and one out, Amed Rosario stroked a run-scoring single to left field that cut New York’s lead to a run. José Ramírez reached on a bloop single that loaded the bases for Oscar Gonzalez, an affable rookie and local fan favorite who used the SpongeBob SquarePants theme song as his walk-up music. Still the Yankees stayed with Schmidt, who watched Gonzalez rip a two-out, two-strike single into center field, past Schmidt’s last-ditch effort to swipe his glove through space.
Schmidt walked off the field, stunned; his teammates followed closely behind. Cleveland had rallied for an unlikely victory and stood nine innings from ending the Yankees’ season. The choice of Schmidt spurred waves of second-guessing inside the visiting clubhouse. Sure, the injury-marred bullpen lacked the automatic, dominant options of years past; Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” no longer accompanied Mariano Rivera across the outfield grass, nor could Boone call upon Chapman or Zack Britton, the saves leaders during his managerial tenure.
The club leader in games finished during the regular season was Holmes, who sustained a right shoulder strain during the series in Toronto, two days before Judge hit No. 61. The Yanks guarded him carefully, and because Holmes had thrown sixteen pitches in Game 2, Boone refused to use him on two consecutive days. That had not been communicated to Holmes, who watched from the bullpen as Schmidt tried to extinguish the flames.
“I felt like I was available to pitch,” Holmes said. “Whenever my name is called, I’m ready to go out there and give it everything I’ve got. They asked and I said I was good to go if needed. That’s how the conversation was. Those decisions aren’t mine.”
The situation reminded of a communication issue within the clubhouse earlier in the season, when Luis Severino had been blindsided by his assignment to the sixty-day injured list. Severino argued vehemently, insisting he’d be ready to pitch long before that date. When Cashman attempted to explain the move, pointing to a calendar, Severino had looked away. Asked about Holmes’s absence, Severino said: “There shouldn’t be people down in the playoffs. That’s something that you guys need to ask Boone or [pitching coach Matt] Blake to see what was going on.”
Boone said that he considered Holmes only for “an emergency situation,” but they had no more intention of using him than the batboy. If Holmes truly was unavailable, why did the Yanks use Jonathan Loáisiga for two outs (fifteen pitches) in the seventh? Why Schmidt over more experienced choices like Miguel Castro or Domingo Germán? There were more questions than answers, and now they needed to win twice to avoid hearing them all off-season.
“I certainly believe in Aaron Boone,” Cashman said. “He’s paid to make difficult decisions on the run. I know a lot goes into them. Every one he makes, am I going to agree with? The answer’s obviously not going to be yes. But I’m certainly not capable of managing a major-league team. There’s very few people that are, and I think he’s really good at it. It comes with the territory, being able to take the criticism and talking about why you make decisions.”
* * *
Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s defense at shortstop had developed into another concern. Boone’s repeated verbal bouquets about the advanced metrics that painted Kiner-Falefa as one of the league’s best glovemen felt hollow, and the eye test never quite supported what analytics like Total Runs Saved and Range Runs claimed, even before the postseason. An AL scout explained that those metrics give more weight based on the perceived difficulty of the play, and it was true that Kiner-Falefa’s athletic ability allowed him to range deep into the hole and make highlight reel plays. His issue stemmed more from balls hit directly at him; the routine double-play grounder that could end an inning, and frustrated pitchers when they did not.
Kiner-Falefa agreed with the scout’s take. “I make some plays that other people can’t make—and I finish them,” he said. “The routine ones, it was like I was telling myself, ‘Don’t mess it up.’ It was like, ‘Don’t mess it up’ instead of, ‘Let’s win the game.’ ”
