CLEVELAND – Via his Instagram account, Aaron Judge offered a public statement.
“The regular season is over, it’s time to turn the page and get back to business and play for a World Series. This is what it’s about, nothing else matters!”
On his first swing Tuesday night, the Yankees slugger put deed to words by slamming a two-run homer off 2020 AL Cy Young Award shoe-in Shane Bieber.
That stunning, first-inning sock to the jaw was followed by a steady stream of hits and runs, allowing Yankees ace Gerrit Cole to fill the strike zone against the Cleveland Indians.
By the late innings, Game 1 of a treacherous best-of-five AL Wild Card Series had become a giddy romp for the visitors at Progressive Field.
“Everyone who’s saying we only play good at Yankee Stadium, it’s a bunch of BS,” Luke Voit said before the Yankees’ 12-3 win played before a handful of select family members from both clubs.
Judge hadn’t homered since coming off the injured list (strained calf) Sept. 16 before connecting in Game 1, following DJ LeMahieu’s leadoff single.
And the Yanks were a pedestrian 11-18 on the road this year, having lost six of their last eight games overall entering postseason.
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“It doesn’t matter if we’re visitors or home, we’re going to come out with a locked and loaded lineup,” Voit said. “And our pitchers are going to attack the zone.”
Game 2 starter Masahiro Tanaka will attempt to clinch the series Wednesday at Cleveland, with J.A. Happ the likely Yankees’ starter — according to manager Aaron Boone — if there’s a Game 3.
Voit’s confidence was backed by a lineup that hung seven runs on Bieber, chasing the planet’s best pitcher during this COVID-19 abbreviated season after just 4.2 innings.
And in his first postseason Yankees start, Cole struck out 13 batters, walked none and yielded two runs in seven sharp innings.
Cole’s 13 Ks were the most by a Yankees pitcher in a postseason game since Roger Clemens’ 15 strikeouts in Game 4 of the 200 AL Championship Series against the Seattle Mariners.
For his first Yankees playoff start, Cole faced a hot spotlight against an opponent who won MLB’s pitching Triple Crown.
Bieber (8-1, 1.63) tied for the MLB lead in wins this year and led both leagues in ERA and strikeouts (122).
And the Yankees scored as many runs against him Tuesday as Bieber had yielded in four September starts.
Voit’s two-out, RBI double made it 3-0 in the third and Gleyber Torres’ two-run homer to center ended Bieber’s night in the fifth, trailing 7-2 after a whopping 105 pitches.
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Boone’s decision to start Brett Gardner (3-for-5, 3 RBI) in left field over the slumping Clint Frazier paid off.
In the fourth inning, Gardner drove an RBI double to left-center field off Bieber and scored after consecutive infield hits by Higashioka and LeMahieu for a 5-1 lead.
Gardner greeted reliever Cam Hill with a two-run homer to center, completing a four-run seventh and stamping Tuesday as a shocking blowout.
Frazier’s otherwise solid 2020 season ended in a frustrating 1-for-21 slide with 11 strikeouts while Gardner went 9-for-22, including Sunday’s three-hit game.
Frazier singled and Gardner homered off Bieber in the right-hander’s abbreviated start against the Yankees last season, but Boone said it was a close decision based more on recent events – and Gardner’s reliable glove.
“Just feel the way Gardy’s started to swing the bat here over the last few weeks and what he brings defensively in this ballpark,” Boone said of Gardner’s edge.
Plus, getting another lefty hitter in the lineup other than the switch-hitting Aaron Hicks “was the way I wanted to go,” Boone said.
After going hitless in his first four at-bats, designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton added the exclamation mark with a long home run in the ninth.
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