Yankees get AL wild card; Judge hits 52nd HR, top Jays 2-1
NEW YORK — In a way, manager Joe Girardi figures, Aaron Judge and some of the young New York Yankees without any post-season experience already have gotten the feel of playoff pressure.
The Yankees wound up with an AL wild-card spot Saturday, beating Toronto 2-1 on Judge’s 52nd home run shortly before Boston clinched the AL East crown.
New York needed two wins and two losses by Boston to force a tiebreaker Monday at Yankee Stadium. Instead, the Yankees will host Minnesota in the wild-card game Tuesday.
“I started thinking about that the last couple of days where in a sense they’re elimination games for us,” Girardi said. “We were five down coming home from the road trip and our guys just continued to play well. They continued to play loose. They continued to make pitches, grind out at-bats and that was encouraging to me because it’s not like we’ve had a chance to turn it off and I like that.”