Yankees rout A's as Aaron Judge hits 54th homer

OAKLAND, Calif. — After the rock fight that was a 10-inning Yankees victory over the A’s on Friday night, things were far easier Saturday night.

And after a 10-0 victory at the Oakland Coliseum in which Anthony Volpe, Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge homered and Carlos Rodon pitched an outstanding six innings, the Yankees inched closer to clinching the AL East crown.

“It’s fun to watch,” Rodon said of the power show, especially the homers by Stanton (441 feet) and Judge (425 feet). “You’re kind of a fan in the moment. I’m still pitching, but [I’m] just a little fanboy watching the guys hit homers.”

The Yankees (91-64), who had 14 hits in improving to 4-1 on this late-season West Coast trip, took a five-game lead over Baltimore (86-69) with seven games to play and trimmed their magic number for winning the division title to three.

“We’re in a good spot,” Stanton said. “We’ve still got work to do, but we’re good for where we are.”

Volpe, 9-for-56 (.161) in the month of September before getting three hits Friday night, went 1-for-4 with a walk and two RBIs, including his 12th homer. Stanton, struggling of late, cracked his 26th homer, a three-run shot. Judge hit his MLB-leading 54th home run but only his third in his last 24 games. The blast gave him a two-homer lead over the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani.

Gleyber Torres led the way with three hits and Judge, Stanton, Juan Soto and Jon Berti each had two.

“Some good at-bats early in that first inning,” Aaron Boone said. “Just kept the pressure on and then Big G took the air out of the building with one of his Big G shots. And then Rodo [Rodon] took it from there.

Rodon (16-9, 3.98 ERA) was the beneficiary of the offensive outburst, though the lefthander was super-sharp regardless. He experienced little trouble in his 90-pitch outing, allowing five hits and a walk. In his second-to-last start before the postseason, he improved to 2-0 with a 1.93 ERA in four September starts.

“Offensively, they showed up again,’’ he said. “Seems like that’s pretty common for when I’m pitching, so it’s nice to have a good lead and just go out there and attack the hitters. Defensively, we played spectacular, really clean.”

The Yankees gave Rodon the lead before he stepped on the mound, the start of a night in which they beat up on lefthander JP Sears, among the prospects they sent to Oakland at the trade deadline in 2022 in the ill-fated deal that landed Frankie Montas (as well as reliever Lou Trivino).

Torres led off with a single to center, Soto — back in the starting lineup after banging his left knee Thursday afternoon in Seattle — singled to center and Judge worked his MLB-leading 127th walk to load the bases. The Yankees took a 1-0 lead when Stanton, in a 5-for-41 slide entering the day, hit into a 5-4-3 double play, but Jasson Dominguez picked him up, lining an 0-and-2 pitch to left for an RBI single and a 2-0 lead.

Volpe, who had not homered since Aug. 3 against the Blue Jays, led off the second by rocketing a 1-and-2, 91-mph fastball 421 feet to left to make it 3-0.

Soto led off the third with a bloop single to left, Judge singled to right and Stanton annihilated a first-pitch changeup to left for a 6-0 lead. “I wasn’t able to capitalize in a bigger spot in the at-bat before,” he said of his double-play ball in the first. “So good to be able to do it there.”

In the seventh, Judge hammered a first-pitch slider over the centerfield wall. Volpe added an RBI groundout and Torres had a two-out, two-run single to make it 10-0.

“It’s a comfortable way to pitch,” Rodon said, “when the boys go out there swinging like that.”