KANSAS CITY — It was just an allusion, still too early in October to bookmark the clip for history. But it’s a familiar and comforting visual that has preceded champagne before: with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, a New York Yankees center fielder in a gray uniform glides to his right to track a fly ball, then squeezes it to end a postseason series.
Two dozen years ago, it was Bernie Williams at Shea Stadium. This time it was Aaron Judge in Kansas City, snagging a routine fly from Yuli Gurriel, pumping his fist and pointing to the sky. Onward they go.
Get ready for chicken buckets in the Bronx!
The @Yankees are heading back to the #ALCS!
(MLB x @BudweiserUSA) #CLINCHED pic.twitter.com/JrFHzavHIF
— MLB (@MLB) October 11, 2024
The Yankees finished off the Kansas City Royals in Game 4 on Thursday, 3-1 on the scoreboard and 3-1 in games for this American League Division Series. They are the second MLB team to earn an invitation to the league championship series and, yes, they’re aware of the other: the New York Mets.
“It’s going to be definitely a fun time in New York, man,” Judge said, after the usual boozy revelry in the visitors clubhouse. “They’re having a great season, and it’s going to be fun to look forward to, down the road, getting a chance to face them again.”
For the Yankees and Mets, those roads rarely converge this time of year. In the 55 seasons of LCS play, this will be just the third to feature both the Yankees and Mets. You might remember the others: 1999, when only the Yankees won, and 2000, when New York City had the World Series all to itself.
The Mets and the Yankees met for five thrillers, each decided by one or two runs. The series was purely delectable, right until the waiter took your plate too soon. When Williams caught Mike Piazza’s drive to end Game 5, it left fans starving for more.
We’re still hungry — at least in New York, where the World Series seemed like a birthright in the years before expansion. From Game 1 in 1949 through Game 2 in 1957, 44 of a possible 48 World Series games took place in New York. It couldn’t have been much fun for the rest of the country, but in the land of Yankees, Giants and Dodgers, it must have been a delight.
Lately, the World Series has mostly taken place elsewhere: 80 of the last 83 games have been staged outside of New York, dating to the Yankees’ last championship in 2009. The Mets reached the World Series in 2015, but the Yankees have dropped their last five appearances in the ALCS, three with Judge as their centerpiece.
“It means everything,” Judge said of this latest chance. “Since I’ve been here with the Yankees, we haven’t secured a pennant. The group that we have, how special this is — just excited for this opportunity. It’s going to be something special.”
The Yankees’ last division series victory was a choppy, waterlogged mess: five games in eight exhausting days against Cleveland in 2022. They had no days off before a series with the Houston Astros, then the defending AL champions, who had three days to rest and rolled to a sweep.
This time, the Yankees will be rested, their opponent rushed. By winning here on Thursday, the Yankees earned a three-day break before Game 1 in the Bronx on Monday against the Guardians or Tigers, who will settle their ALDS on Saturday in Cleveland.
“In ’22 we kind of limped into it a little bit,” manager Aaron Boone said, recalling the late-season injuries and punishing division series. “I remember getting into Houston middle of the night — not an excuse, but I feel like we’re in a better place right now, just from a roster standpoint, health standpoint.
“But you get to this point, now we’ll be down to the final four. Everyone is feeling pretty good about their teams. That’s the case for me.”
The Yankees are doing what good teams should in October: protecting late leads, playing solid defense and wearing down the other team’s pitchers. The bullpen spun 15 2/3 scoreless innings against Kansas City, novice first basemen Jon Berti and Oswaldo Cabrera played flawlessly, and Yankees hitters drew 27 walks — while striking out just 28 times — against a Royals staff that had prided itself on control.
“The way that the whole lineup was able to work at-bats, make the pitchers work and get the next guy up,” catcher Austin Wells said. “That’s been what we’re trying to do here, so I think (we’ve) done a really good job.”
The Yankees never trailed in two games here, but the opener last Saturday was the first postseason game ever with five lead changes. The Yankees prevailed that night, and that’s what Judge cited when asked what gives him the most optimism now.
“I think (it goes) back to that first game,” he said. “We faced a lot of adversity in the regular season, a lot of ups and downs, a lot of tough times, a lot of good times. To come away with the best record in the AL was huge for us, and then you go to the first game where they punch us, we punch them, they punch us back, we take back the lead. Just a lot of back and forth, which that’s what’s going to happen in the postseason.
“You guys have been watching the postseason and what’s been going on. Just a lot of lead changes and who can keep throwing punches when you’re getting beat on. A lot of fight out of these guys. Just never quit.”
It’s the same story with the Mets, who staged comeback victories in their postseason clincher in Atlanta, both of their first-round wins in Milwaukee, and two of their NLDS victories against the Phillies.
The Yankees are not surprised. They revere the Mets’ manager, Carlos Mendoza, who coached on Boone’s staff for six seasons before switching boroughs last fall.
“I knew he was fully ready for that job,” Boone said. “Connects well with people. He’s obviously bilingual and he’s very good at communicating with anyone. You realize what a good dude he is, and you recognize his intelligence, too. So he’s just the real deal.”
Imagine a World Series pitting Boone and a protégé; the Steinbrenners and the Cohens; the homegrown sluggers (Judge and Pete Alonso); the imports who seem made for New York (Juan Soto and Francisco Lindor); the Bleacher Creatures and that Grimace creature.
OK, so we don’t even know the LCS matchups quite yet. Four other teams are also desperate to crash the stage in late October. But for right now — for a New York minute, you might say — the only ones who know they’ll be playing for the pennant are the Mets and Yankees.
A Subway Series? In 2024, they could make it there.
The Athletic’s Brendan Kuty contributed to this story.
(Top photo of Francisco Lindor and Juan Soto in July: Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)