NEW YORK — Gerrit Cole was shaky. Aaron Judge did nothing. The Yankees won anyway.
Under the gaze of a sold-out home crowd, beneath an avalanche of supersonic expectations, the Bronx Bombers opened their 2024 postseason journey with a sloppy, energizing, comeback win over the upstart Kansas City Royals in Game 1 of the ALDS.
Much-maligned outfielder Alex Verdugo delivered the definitive blow in New York’s 6-5 victory on Saturday, slicing a two-out RBI knock in the seventh to give New York a lead it wouldn’t relinquish. Upon reaching second base, a triumphant Verdugo threw his hands in the air and made a summoning motion toward his jubilant teammates.
Yankee Stadium roared in delight, 45,000 souls celebrating the man many die-hards booed into oblivion during Verdugo’s summer of offensive ineptitude.
In an instant, all was forgiven — or at least forgotten. The effect was the same.
“This is his moment,” third baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. told Yahoo Sports about Verdugo. “This is when he does his s***. He’s been doing it his whole life — played in L.A., played in Boston. This is what he does.”
Acquired last winter in a trade with the rival Red Sox, Verdugo struggled with the bat throughout his first year in the Bronx. Stellar defense in Yankee Stadium’s spacious left field kept his profile afloat, but the endearingly aloof, left-handed slugger underperformed at the plate. Those struggles drew the ire of Yankees fans desperate to see top prospect Jasson Dominguez usurp Verdugo as the every-day left fielder.
Dominguez’s call-up in September felt like something of an audition. Perhaps a hot few weeks from the 21-year-old rookie would see him supplant Verdugo come playoff time.
Instead, Dominguez scuffled while Verdugo showed signs of life. That only strengthened the resolve of Yankees skipper Aaron Boone, who, through it all, never lost confidence in Verdugo. A few days ago, Boone informed the 28-year-old that he would be the choice in left field for the club’s first playoff game.
Offered Boone: “He’s a good all-around player, and it’s not always what you did — it’s what you’re capable of doing moving forward.”
On Saturday, under the brightest lights in the sport, Verdugo paid his manager back.
“He’s going to trust me.” Verdugo said. “And I just wanted to kind of, you know, put that back to him, like, ‘hey, man, I got you.’”
Boone’s immense, unrelenting faith in his players is perhaps his most defining trait as a manager. There is no louder fan base in the sport. Boone is a master of blocking out the noise and sticking to his guns. Sometimes that fealty comes back to burn him — Josh Donaldson and Aaron Hicks are two obvious examples — but it also fosters a sense of loyalty among his players that’s hard to ignore.
“He’s been in these moments,” Chisholm said of Boone. “He’s been a Yankee. He knows how hard it is.”
And for long stretches on Saturday, the Yankees made it look decently hard.
Judge, the presumed American League MVP, went 0-for-4 with a walk and three strikeouts. Two of his punchouts came with two runners on base. The Yankees captain swung and missed seven times on the night, his third-highest single-game total this year. It was a rough start for Judge, who, in his seventh postseason, is still searching for his first World Series appearance.
Starting pitcher Gerrit Cole, who finished the regular season allowing just one run in his last 15 2/3 innings, looked shaky from pitch one. Kansas City’s leadoff man, Michael Massey, skied the first offering of the game to the warning track in left field. If not for a steady wind blowing toward home plate, the ball might’ve landed in the seats. Instead, it found safety in Juan Soto’s glove.
In all, Cole surrendered four runs (three earned) across five rocky innings. The Royals, who managed just three runs across 18 innings in their wild-card win over Baltimore, rapped seven hits off the reigning AL Cy Young. Cole departed in the sixth inning after his former teammate, 40-year-old first baseman Yuli Gurriel, clanged a laser-beam single off the left-field wall. Gurriel’s smash would have been a homer in six MLB stadiums, including his and Cole’s old stomping grounds in Houston.
Gurriel would come around to score, helped greatly by an Anthony Volpe throwing error on a would-be double play. But then New York’s bullpen settled the boil, keeping the Royals scoreless over the game’s final three frames.
Yankees closer Luke Weaver collected the last four outs in electrifying fashion. The slender righty punched out Maikel Garcia to end the eighth before retiring the top three in Kansas City’s order in a 1-2-3 ninth. A coin-flip strike-three call on Royals dynamo Bobby Witt Jr. for out No. 2 sent the home crowd into a frenzy and Witt into a fit of frustration. Weaver got first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino to roll meekly to first to end it.
For New York, the performance was far from definitive. Juan Soto (three hits) was the only star who lived up to the billing. The Yankees let the Royals back into the ballgame multiple times. There were defensive miscues and baserunning blunders. Flaws remain; superior opponents await.
But when the first notes of Sinatra’s “New York, New York” bellowed from the stadium speaker at 10:01 p.m. local time, the Yankees were 1-0.
For now, that’s all that matters.