Judge homers as Yankees best Guardians in Game 2 of ALCS

NEW YORK — Aaron Judge hit a two-run drive into Monument Park for his first home run of this postseason, and the New York Yankees beat the Cleveland Guardians 6-3 on Tuesday night to take a 2-0 American League Championship Series lead.

Judge, who entered with just one RBI in the playoffs, hit a sacrifice fly in a two-run second that put the Yankees ahead 3-0. With New York leading 4-2 in the seventh, the likely AL MVP drove a fastball at the letters from Hunter Gaddis 414 feet to center for his 14th career postseason home run.

“It was just good to add two more runs there,” Judge told TBS after the game. “Against a tough team, they have a great bullpen, they were fighting and clawing all game. So to give ourselves a couple more runs there. Gleyber [Torres] did his thing getting on base again, like he’s been doing all series. It was good to add two.” 

In a matchup of aces who had off nights, Cleveland’s Tanner Bibee got just four outs in the shortest start of his professional career, and an erratic Gerrit Cole was chased after four walks in 4⅓ innings.

Winning pitcher  Clay Holmes, Tim Hill and Tommy Kahnle combined for 3⅔ scoreless innings. Jose Ramirez hit a ninth-inning home run off Luke Weaver, just the second earned run New York’s bullpen has allowed over 23⅓ innings in six postseason games.

“It’s been huge,” Judge said of the bullpen. “Past couple of seasons, we’ve come to the postseason kind of patching our bullpen together. But these guys came in, they’re healthy, they’re feeling great. Some great performances from quite a few guys at the back end.” 

After a day off, Game 3 is Thursday in Cleveland. The Yankees lead the ALCS 2-0 for the first time since 2009 against the Los Angeles Angels.

Teams are 32-5 in the best-of-seven league championship series when leading 2-0. 

Torres reached base leading off for the fifth time in the playoffs and had three hits. Anthony Rizzo had two hits and is 3-for-7 in two games since returning from a pair of fractured fingers that caused him to miss the division series.

The Yankees became the 30th team to win the first two games of a best-of-seven series without trailing. Of the previous 29, 13 went on to sweep the series. 

Rookie shortstop Brayan Rocchio and right fielder Will Brennan committed run-scoring errors for the Guardians.

Rocchio dropped Judge’s first-inning popup, allowing Torres to score. After Cleveland closed to 3-2, Brennan bobbled the ball when he tried for a barehand pickup of Rizzo’s sixth-inning double that caromed off the low wall down the right-field line. Anthony Volpe, who had been on first, sprinted home.

Steven Kwan extended his Cleveland-record postseason hitting streak to 12 games.

Alex Verdugo had an opposite-field RBI double in the Yankees’ two-run second that glanced off a shoulder of left-field umpire Vic Carapazza and went down the line.

Cleveland closed to 3-2 in the fifth when Josh Naylor hit a sacrifice fly and, after Holmes relieved Cole with the bases loaded, Brennan grounded into a run-scoring forceout.

Cleveland went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position and stranded 11 runners.

Cole escaped two-on, one-out trouble in the third and then a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the fourth when pinch hitter David Fry fouled out and Rocchio took a knuckle curve at the top of the strike zone for a called third strike in a nine-pitch at-bat.

Holmes struck out Austin Hedges on a low sinker to leave the bases loaded in the fifth.

Information from ESPN Research and The Associated Press was used in this report.