Aaron Judge blasted a three-run homer into the third deck of the left field bleachers and the New York Yankees celebrated clinching a postseason berth by posting an 8-3 win over the Minnesota Twins on Monday night in Minneapolis.
Jose Caballero went 2-for-4 with a homer and two RBIs for New York (87-63), which is headed to the playoffs for the ninth time in the past 10 seasons. The Yankees learned during their game that they had reached the postseason because of a loss by the Toronto Blue Jays to the Detroit Tigers, and New York topped the Twins to punctuate the night.
Ben Rice finished 2-for-3 with two RBIs for the Yankees, who are 3 1/2 games back of the first-place Tampa Bay Rays (90-59) in the American League East and five games up on the Boston Red Sox (82-68) for the first AL wild card. Austin Wells also homered.
Emmanuel Rodriguez went 2-for-4 with a two-run triple for Minnesota (70-80). Josh Bell finished 2-for-4 with a solo home run.
Yankees reliever Tim Hill (5-2) allowed one run in his lone inning, and John Schreiber got the last four outs for his second save.
Twins reliever Andrew Morris (4-8) gave up three runs in one-third of an inning.
New York broke through with six runs in the top of the eighth to transform a 2-1 deficit into a 7-2 advantage.
Caballero evened the score with a one-out single that drove in George Lombard Jr. After Anthony Volpe and Caballero pulled off a double steal, Rice hit a broken-bat single that landed just past the dive of Twins shortstop Ryan Kreidler, driving in two runs to make it 4-2.
After Cody Bellinger singled, Judge provided an exclamation mark on the big inning. He belted a towering, 415-foot homer to left to put New York on top 7-2. It was his first long ball in six games since returning last week from a fractured rib, his 18th of the year overall.
The Twins got a run back on Bell’s solo homer in the bottom of the eighth.
Wells capped the scoring with a solo homer in the ninth.
The Yankees opened the scoring in the third. Caballero hammered a curveball to left for his 14th homer and his first since Aug. 30.
The Twins took the lead on Rodriguez’s two-run triple in the sixth.
Both starting pitchers lasted 5 2/3 innings. New York’s Will Warren permitted two runs, both unearned, on five hits. Minnesota’s Dean Kremer permitted one run on two hits.