Playoff G, MVP.
He’s just a different animal, folks, and in a five-game series full of deserving Yankees – Gleyber Torres hitting .364 atop the lineup, Juan Soto with the home run that ended a 15-year drought – it was Giancarlo Stanton and his four home runs named ALCS MVP.
All four of his hits in the ALCS were dingers, and all four were huge – the last one, of course, knocking Tanner Bibee out of Game 5 and tying it at 2-2 in the sixth, bringing the Yankees back to life.
“I went down 0-2, not the best two swing and misses, but I was able to battle back to 3-2, and then he left one hanging, and I took care of it,” Stanton said after the game. “(I was looking for) something out over. He was mixing both sides and putting different shapes on his off speeds, so making sure I saw something up and over the heart of the plate.”
“You can't pure a ball any better than that. That's as good a swing that you can put on a ball,” manager Aaron Boone added.
Soto’s may have been the pennant clincher, but it was Stanton’s who got the Yankees going, and his other three homers were nothing to sneeze at, either, like his three-run shot in Game 4 that gave the Yankees a 6-2 lead in a game they won 8-6, or going back-to-back with Aaron Judge in Game 3 to give the Yankees a 4-3 lead in the eighth inning before they were unable to finish the job.
Just call him the busser, because when the Yankees needed it most, he cleared the table, and the sight of the entire team hooting and hollering as he got that MVP trophy was enough to make G – who also now has the most homers, 16, in a player’s first 36 playoff games in MLB history – emotional.
“They're so much fun. We're enjoying every bit of this, and to be able to celebrate with them, it's just so much fun,” Stanton said. “I’m gonna take this home, put it in the trophy case, and enjoy the memory. This is something special for me.”
Stanton has won an NL MVP and two Silver Sluggers in his career, but this one is indeed special – for the first time in his career, and Judge’s career, the Yankees are going to the World Series.
“A lot of emotions. Just really proud of this group, proud of this organization,” Boone said. “To get to do it with these guys every single day and what they have is very special. We've had some great groups, some great camaraderie, some great clubhouses, and this group is as close as I've ever seen. I keep saying we get to go play for a World Championship now.
That's pretty sweet.”