Aaron Judge picked a good time to get his first career walk-off hit, sending the Yankees to the postseason with the game-winning single in the bottom of the ninth against the Rays on Sunday.
“Walk-off situations, you never know when they’re gonna come up,” Judge said. “It’s always a random situation wehen it pops up. In that spot, I’m just thinking about doing my hob…because the guys in front of me did theirs, and being in the middle of the order, I just gotta go up there and do my job.
“It really wasn’t in my head, but glad I was able to get it done.”
But after dropping the first two to Tampa this past weekend, the Yanks will now have to play the Wild Card Game on the road for the first time in franchise history, after hosting the game in 2015, 2017 and 2018. The opponent? The Boston Red Sox in a winner-take-all playoff game to help inject some adrenaline into a rivalry that has been largely dormant since meeting in the 2018 ALDS.
“That’s gonna be a fun game right there,” Judge said. “It’s gonna be action packed. They’re gonna bring their A-game, we’re gonna bring our A-game, and it’s just gonna go down as another great game in this big rivalry we have. We’re looking forward to it.”
The environment is certain to be a hostile one, which Judge knows plenty about. He took David Price deep for a no-doubt home run the last time these two teams played each other in a postseason game at Fenway, but this time, there will be almost no room for error in a win-or-go-home scenario, which will only be more difficult to overcome on the road.
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“We’d love to play at home, especially that Wild Card Game, but we were excited anywhere we went, and getting a chance to go to Boston and play, that’s gonna be an exciting matchup for sure,” Judge said.
The season was one of drastic highs and lows, and it now comes down to one game to decide if the roller coaster rides on. The Yankees were celebrating on Sunday, and after barely earning a chance to accomplish their goal, the real work begins, and starts off with a bang.
“It was a good celebration, but now it’s time to go back to work,” Judge said. “Now the season begins. Those 162, that was spring training. Now it’s time to get to the regular season and get this thing rolling.”
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