Aaron Judge tried his best to answer reporters’ postgame questions as he battled the sting of champagne in his eyes in a celebratory locker room Monday.
“You’ve got to earn it,” Judge said. “You’ve got to earn the burn. It’s amazing.”
Judge and his teammates on the New York Yankees (87-63) will try to refocus on the rest of the regular season when they face the Minnesota Twins (70-80) on Tuesday evening in Minneapolis.
The Yankees won the series opener 8-3 on Monday and partied in the visitors’ clubhouse after clinching a postseason berth for the ninth time in the past 10 seasons.
New York has 12 games remaining in the regular season, and Judge is looking to heat up at the plate as the postseason approaches. He crushed a towering, three-run homer in Monday’s series opener, marking his first long ball since he returned from the injured list on Tuesday.
The blast gave Judge 18 homers this season and 386 for his career, but his focus squarely is on the team’s success heading into late September and October.
“It’s a great feeling,” Judge said. … “(The Yankees have) an opportunity to win a World Series every single year.”
“We’ve got a special group here,” he added. “Special guys that are fighting for each other, in everybody’s corner. We just continue to get better. Excited to get back into the postseason. We’re going to celebrate (Monday night), but we know what’s ahead of us. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Yankees left-hander Max Fried (4-4, 2.73 ERA) will start on Tuesday. He has 94 strikeouts in 99 innings this season.
Fried has not made it six innings in any of his past four outings. In his most recent start, he allowed one run on one hit in 3 1/3 innings in his team’s 10-3 win against the Colorado Rockies on Thursday.
This will be Fried’s third career start against Minnesota. In his first two starts, Fried is 2-0 with an 0.87 ERA and has walked one and struck out 17 in 10 1/3 innings.
The Twins, who have lost four of their past five games, will send out right-hander Bailey Ober (7-5, 4.28 ERA). He also has not made it six innings in his past four starts and is coming off a 10-1 loss on Sept. 6 against the Chicago White Sox despite allowing only one run on four hits in 4 1/3 innings.
Ober is 0-1 with a 5.40 ERA in his lone career start against the Yankees.
Minnesota rookie Emmanuel Rodriguez will look to provide a bright spot at the plate for a team that likely is playing its final two weeks of the season. Rodriguez was promoted from Triple-A St. Paul on Saturday and has three RBIs in his first three games, and he notched his first career triple on Monday.
“He controls his at-bats,” Twins manager Derek Shelton said. “The kid has got really quick hands, man. He can get to the ball. He’s really short (with his swing).”
–Field Level Media
