The New York Yankees missed another chance to secure the American League (AL) East title on Wednesday, falling 9-7 to the Baltimore Orioles, despite Aaron Judge achieving a historic 142nd RBI. After trailing 3-0 at the end of the first inning, the Orioles appeared in control until the ninth, when the Yankees rallied. Juan Soto's single brought Anthony Rizzo home, making it 9-4. Judge then launched a three-run homer—his MLB-leading 57th of the season—narrowing Baltimore's lead to two runs. However, after a pitching change to Keegan Akin, the Orioles closed out the game.
Despite the defeat, Judge's performance shone through, as he became the first player since 2009 to record over 140 RBIs in a season, joining Prince Fielder and Ryan Howard, who each had 141. MLB stats indicate that the longest interval between 140+ RBI seasons is five years, dating back to 1920.
Judge recorded 131 RBI in his 62-homer season in 2022. Both numbers figure to be part of a strong argument for Judge to win his second career MVP award this offseason. In addition to homers and RBI, Judge entered Wednesday leading the league in walks (130), on-base percentage (.459), slugging percentage (.699), OPS+ (222), total bases (383), and bWAR (10.4).
In a post-game interview, Judge emphasized the team's determination: “No quit in the team there all the way till the end. I never feel like we’re ever out of a game no matter the score.”
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Yankees rough start
The Yankees faced a rough start, with fill-in starter Marcus Stroman surrendering six consecutive singles in the first inning, marking a historic achievement for Baltimore. After the Orioles scored three runs early, Anthony Volpe's RBI single in the second cut the deficit to 3-1. However, Baltimore extended its lead in the fourth, highlighted by Gunnar Henderson's two-RBI single, prompting boos from the Yankee Stadium crowd and ending Stroman's outing. Clayton Beeter struggled as well, allowing additional runs that pushed the score to 8-1 by the fifth inning.
Soto responded with a two-run homer, his 41st of the year, bringing the score to 8-3, but Baltimore added another run in the eighth to maintain a comfortable lead.
Having clinched their seventh playoff berth in eight seasons last week, the Yankees must win at least one of their final four games to secure the division title.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone stated, “Nothing’s been easy for us this year. Shouldn’t expect it to be now. But we’ve kind of persevered and kind of grinded our way through all of it. We’ll be ready to go tomorrow.”
“Right away just really good at-bats from the first inning. We had a lot of clutch hits, kept the line moving. Thought our at-bats all night were really good and you can never score enough here. We almost saw it. So it was a great night for us offensively," Baltimore manager Brandon Hyde said.
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