NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Yankees won the AL East title for a first-round bye in the playoffs, dispatching the Baltimore Orioles with a 10-1 victory Thursday night behind Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Gerrit Cole. When Cedric Mullins hit a game-ending groundout to shortstop Anthony Volpe, the Yankees came out of the dugout and formed a brief jumping huddle between the mound and second base. New York improved to 93-66 and and will open its 59th postseason at home Oct.
5 in a best-of-five Division Series against a winner of next week's wild-card round. The Yankees will have five days off following Sunday's regular-season finale. “We’ve known we had to play well here down the stretch to put ourselves in position to win the division,” manager Aaron Boone said Tuesday.
“You never know what happens when you get into the tournament. It’s about peaking at those times, too." Judge hit his major league-leading 58th homer, going deep for the fifth straight game and increasing his RBIs total to 144, the most in the big leagues since Ryan Howard's 146 in 2008.
Stanton hit his 27th homer and had four RBIs, and Cole pitched 6 2/3 innings of two-hit ball. New York arrived home this week needing one win to take the AL East crown but lost consecutive games to second-place Baltimore (88-71), putting the celebration on hold. Trying to hold off AL Central champion Cleveland for home-field advantage throughout the American League playoffs, the Yankees (93-66) have a one-game le.