Takeaways from Yankees' ALCS Game 2 victory
Alex Verdugo #24, Aaron Judge #99 and Juan Soto #22 of the Yankees celebrate after defeating the Cleveland Guardians in game two of the American League Championship Series at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. Credit: Jim McIsaac
The Yankees didn’t do everything right in their 6-3 win over the Guardians in Game 2 of the ALCS, but it didn’t seem to matter: Whatever the Yankess' missteps, the Guardians’ were more egregious.
The Yankees are now taking a comfortable two-game lead back to Cleveland against a team that simply looks overmatched by the AL East juggernaut. That said, the Guardians had the best home record in the American League; they’ll need every shred of Progressive Field magic if they want to save this series from the brink of oblivion.
Here are three takeaways from Tuesday’s victory:
1. The monster is stirring
After coming into the day hitting .133 for these playoffs, Aaron Judge notched his first homer of the postseason, a two-run, 414-foot blast off Hunter Gaddis’ letter-high fastball in the seventh. Previously, Judge hit two other balls 323 feet, a sacrifice fly in the second and a flyout in the fifth; it was a testament to his playoff struggles, though, that Juan Soto was intentionally walked to load the bases with one out in the second to bring up Judge.
“Always a matter of time with Aaron,” Aaron Boone said. "He had some good swings tonight. [He had] a big sac fly to extend the lead a little bit when he was behind in the count off a pretty tough customer in [Cade] Smith there, able to fight that one off. The pop-up that they dropped [in the first], I thought he got a great swing off, too. It's one of those you miss. It's that close to being a home run, but it’s definitely good to see him put one in the seats and really give us a cushion there.”
2. The bullpen was supposed to be the Guardians’ strength; it’s the Yankees’
It’s not surprising that the Yankees' bullpen is doing well; the unit had the sixth-best ERA in the majors this season. But it might be surprising to see the Guardians relievers get tagged, especially since they had MLB’s high-water mark. Part of it has to do with the starters putting a big onus on the relief corps. Alex Cobb pitched just 2 2/3 innings Monday and Tanner Bibee, the staff ace, lasted 1 1/3 innings Tuesday, meaning that manager Stephen Vogt had to use seven more pitchers to finish the game.
“These guys have pitched a lot all year,” Vogt said. “Again, we didn't overextend anyone today. We didn't overextend anyone yesterday. So with the off day, our bullpen should be right back to full strength. We'll regroup, and we'll get after it.”
Yankees relievers, though, only seem to be getting stronger: Clay Holmes, Tim Hill, Tommy Kahnle and Luke Weaver combined for 4 2/3 innings of one-run ball. The unit has a 0.77 ERA in 23 1/3 postseason innings.
“We’ve got a lot of confidence in ourselves,” said Holmes, who hasn’t allowed a run in these playoffs and bailed out Gerrit Cole in a bases-loaded, one-out situation in the fifth (Holmes allowed an inherited runner to score on a forceout). “There’s definitely been some ups and downs, but I think it’s prepared us and battle tested us for this opportunity. It’s been fun to see guys step up and hand the ball off.”
3. Eventually, all these missed opportunities could come back to haunt them
It might not happen against the Guardians, whose pitching isn’t putting up much of a fight, but despite the two-game lead, the Yankees continue to leave runs on the basepaths. Their situational hitting has struggled and Tuesday, their baserunning got into the mix. They're 8-for-52 with runners in scoring position in the postseason, including 0-for-7 in Game 1. Tuesday was barely better: They were 2-for-10 with men on second and third and left valuable runs on the basepaths against a wilting Guardians bullpen. Then in the sixth, they had two runners picked off second base — first, Jazz Chisholm Jr. (which cost them a run) and then Anthony Rizzo to end the inning.
“It's about getting wins. We're in the postseason. I mean, those things are going to happen,” Boone said of the baserunning gaffes. “We're not going to not be aggressive in certain situations, [but] we try to guard against [mistakes] as best we can. Then Rizz just had a funky read on what he thought kind of ended up going to the backstop. I feel overall we're playing pretty well.”
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
