Third Time Was The Charm: Yankees Win AL East Title

That was one hell of a night for the Yankees as they got an all-world performance from Gerrit Cole and a seismic couple of at bats from Giancarlo Stanton to blow out the Orioles and clinch the AL East division title. Lets get to it.

Sept. 26: Yankees 10, Orioles 1

Well, that was some kind of crazy, maddening, exhilarating ride, but the Yankees are AL East champions this morning.

That’s a hell of a thing for this team, especially given how absolutely horrible they were for most of the summer, but two things happened to make this possible.

The Orioles - coming off a 101-season with a boatload of young and impressive players which is why they were the consensus favorite to win the division when the season began - were concurrently every bit as horrible and kept the door wide open for the Yankees. And when it got right down to nut cutting time, the Yankees burst through that door and declared themselves ready for the moment in September while the young Orioles continued their inconsistent ways, and ultimately the Yankees left no doubt which team deserved to win the division.

“I think that’s fair,” Aaron Boone said when he was asked if he recognized that the Orioles were considered the favorite. “But I think a lot of people thought we were going to be good, too.”

He’s right, and those expectations were weighty for the Yankees. After winning only 82 games and missing the postseason in 2023 - an “unacceptable” performance according to owner Hal Steinbrenner, a “disaster” according to general manager Brian Cashman, and they were both right - there was a lot of pressure on the Yankees to right that wrong in 2024. To their credit, they did it.

“This team was hungry,” Aaron Judge said. “It goes back to not making the playoffs last year. That was just enough fuel for this team to go out and say hey, we gotta make some changes, we gotta do better.”

It’s only the first step, and no one is gonna give a shit about this if they don’t end their 15-year World Series drought, but still, this was a nice accomplishment. As for the World Series, look, what happened in the first two games of this series only strengthened my belief that the Yankees probably aren’t good enough to win it all. But that’s a worry for next week when the best-of-five AL Divisional Series begins at Yankee Stadium.

Today is a day to celebrate the 50th time in franchise history in which they finished first in either the division (21 AL East titles since the advent of divisional play in 1969), or the American League, which is obviously way more than any franchise in MLB history.

“I feel like we’ve been through a lot as a team already this year, so I’d like to think we’re battle-tested for what’s ahead,” Boone said. “I’m really excited for these guys that persevered through a lot of moments in the season. There’s a long way to go, but I know we’ll enjoy this right now.”

Here are my observations:

➤ Gerrit Cole was incredible. That’s what an ace is supposed to do - take the ball in a huge game and then deliver a performance like that. He dominated the Orioles across his 6.2 shutout innings, allowing just two hits and a walk and striking out five, spitting fire the whole way. Wow, that was electric and the same fans who booed him off the mound - deservedly so - for that fiasco against the Red Sox a couple weeks ago gave him a loud standing ovation, and I love that he tipped his cap. So many times athletes don’t recognize how important that gesture is, to acknowledge cheering fans, and I was glad Cole knew what to do there.

➤ Cole retired the first eight men he faced before walking James McCann in the third. He then retired the next six before he finally yielded his first hit, a single by pesky Ramon Urias in the fifth. McCann led off the sixth with a single, but Cole got the next three men, striking out the dangerous Anthony Santander as the crowd roared with delight. “It was a special night,” Cole said. “This is what you want as a player. The division is right there for the taking. You’ve got to go out there and get it. This season was hard for us, even though we’ve clinched here with a few games to go. We’ve weathered the ups and downs and put ourselves in a good position to play good ball here going forward.”

➤ Corbin Burnes started for the Orioles and their ace was every bit as dominant as Cole, with the exception of two things. He made a mistake in the second inning and Giancarlo Stanton made him pay with a solo homer, and he pitched only five innings (69 pitches) because Baltimore manager Brandon Hyde, knowing that his team was destined for the wild-card series, wanted to save a few bullets so he’s fresh for Game 1.

➤ Once Burnes went out, and after the dramatic way the top of the sixth ended, all hell broke loose as the Yankees attacked the shaky Baltimore bullpen and erupted for six runs in the decisive bottom of the sixth. Yennier Cano, who is one of the Orioles’ high leverage guys, just didn’t have it. He struck out Anthony Volpe, but then Gleyber Torres walked, Juan Soto singled, and Judge walked to load the bases. Hyde went to lefty Cionel Perez with lefty-swinging and slumping Austin Wells due up, and Wells worked a terrific full-count walk to make it 2-0.

➤ Stanton, who has been in his own slump throughout September, then hit a rocket to right-center, a bases-clearing three-run double to make it 5-0. Even then the Yankees weren’t done as Bryan Baker came in and walked Jasson Dominguez and Anthony Rizzo followed with a two-run single and that’s when the celebration really began in the stadium. Up a touchdown, the Yankees weren’t blowing that.

➤ The final three runs came when Judge hit his 58th homer, a two-run shot in the seventh, the fifth straight game he has homered, and then a pinch-hit solo homer by Alex Verdugo in the eighth.

The division is clinched, but there’s still the matter of the No. 1 seed in the AL bracket which would be nice to get, though as I’ve said, the Yankees have actually been better on the road than they have at home, so maybe it isn’t such a big deal.

Anyway, the Yankees (93-66) lead the Guardians (92-67) by a game, plus have the head-to-head tiebreaker, which only furthers the point that I harp on all the time - every game counts, and the Yankees winning the season series against the Guardians proved to be important. Thus, the magic number is two - any combination of Yankees wins and Guardians losses adding to two wraps that up.

The Pirates (74-85) come to the Bronx to close the regular season, so the Yankees should be able to take care of this. Meanwhile, the Guardians are hosting the Astros in a series that means nothing to Houston because it is already locked in as the No. 3 seed and can’t catch Cleveland.

The pitching matchups are as follows: Friday at 7:05 on YES it’s Carlos Rodon (3.98 ERA) against Jared Jones (4.14); Saturday at 1:05 on YES it’s Luis Gil (3.27) against Paul Skenes (1.99); and Sunday at 3:05 on YES it’s Clarke Schmidt (2.55) against Bailey Falter (4.26).