MLB playoffs: Yankees moving on to ALCS after Gerrit Cole, Aaron Judge come through in ALDS Game 4 in Kansas City

One year and 10 days ago, the Yankees played their final game of the 2023 regular season.

They lost 5-2 in Kansas City to a 106-loss Royals team. Starter Michael King, now on the Padres, got blasted for eight hits and four runs in four innings. A young outfielder named Everson Pereira, who spent the entire 2024 season with Triple-A Scranton, whiffed through a bounced curveball for the final out. The Yankees and their $273 million payroll finished the season 82-80.

New York had been statistically eliminated a week earlier — they were emotionally eliminated well before that — but the final day of the regular season still meant something. It stung particularly for the club’s captain, Aaron Judge, who had re-signed with the Yankees the previous winter for nine years and $360 million. In the first year of his tenure as captain, the Yankees delivered their worst regular season since 1992.

And so, the gargantuan outfielder, who enjoyed another stellar though injury-marred season, lingered in the Kauffman Stadium dugout for a beat as the rest of the Yankees matriculated to the locker room. It is an image most often seen at the end of a playoff series: The downtrodden losers drooped over the railing, watching the winners celebrate in a masochistic ritual of supposed growth. But on that afternoon in Kansas City, Judge gazed out toward nothing but the failures of his team. After a few moments, he rose, rolled a baseball to a fan in the front row and trudged toward the clubhouse.

That memory lingered in the captain’s mind. He did not forget that disappointing day.

“[In] 2023, our season ended here,” Judge told TNT sideline reporter Jon Morosi after catching the final out of New York’s series-clinching 3-1 win in ALDS Game 4 on Thursday. “We didn’t get into the postseason. I remember a lot of these guys looking out on the field.

“We came together and said that’s not going to happen again.”

Judge went 1-for-2 with two walks on Thursday. His 115 mph double in the sixth inning, after which he came around to score the team’s third run, was the second-hardest hit ball of his postseason career and his hardest since 2018. New York scored its first two runs on RBI singles from Gleyber Torres and Giancarlo Stanton, who further solidified his reputation as a playoff performer.

Judge, on the other hand, entered the evening with a paltry 1-for-11 line this October, earning him a mountain of unfounded criticism. But on Thursday, he took a small step toward erasing the premature concerns about his postseason bona fides.

So did the Yankees.

New York arrived in Kansas City for Game 3 under the specter of apprehension. Fans worried, prognosticators prodded, and understandably so. The Yankees did not play crisply in either of their home games in this series. They eked out a Game 1 win behind the superiority of their bullpen but didn’t look convincing in the process. The Royals silenced the Yankees’ bats in a Game 2 win. A series that, on paper, was supposed to be something of a mismatch had become a coin flip. The team with the American League’s best record was being pushed to the edge by a club that had the league’s worst offense in September.

Now the Yankees, thanks to a pair of stellar pitching performances in Games 3 and 4, have put those doubts to bed — for now. The bullpen, in particular, has been a godsend. Through their first 15 2/3 innings of work this postseason, New York relievers have not allowed an earned run. Clay Holmes and Luke Weaver each tossed a scoreless frame on Thursday.

Their appearances backed up a strong bounce-back start from ace Gerrit Cole. The ever-emotive hurler was knocked around a bit in New York’s Game 1 win, allowing three earned runs and seven hits across five innings. Many pitchers would’ve been satisfied, thrilled even, to finish a playoff start with that line. But not Cole, who shook his head in self-disgust as he trod back to the clubhouse after getting pulled.

In Game 4, he was much sharper, allowing just one run across seven innings. A notable change in approach certainly helped, one Cole alluded to during his media conference after Game 1.

“We’re looking forward to making some adjustments next time out,” Cole said.

Adjust he did. In Game 1, Cole threw 11 sliders to Royals hitters. None turned into outs. Four became hits, including the wall-banging double from Yuli Gurriel that bounced Cole from the game. The slider kept backing up on Cole, catching far too much plate and far too many barrels.

So he and the Yankees zagged in Game 4, scrapping the pitch altogether. On Thursday, Cole did not throw a single slider. Instead, he leaned heavily on his four-seam fastball, throwing it 55% of the time. Cole hadn’t thrown his heater that frequently in a start since September 2023, a sign of both intent and adaptability from the Yankees ace.

“[The fastball] was getting to good spots all night,” he told YES Network during the club’s postgame clubhouse celebration. “The run support allowed us to stay on the attack.”

Cole’s final pitch, a 97.7 mph fastball to the relatively unpowerful Kyle Isbel, provided the hairiest moment of the evening. The preceding batter, veteran outfielder Tommy Pham, had laced a single off Cole, his third of the evening. Isbel came to the plate with a chance to tie the ballgame. And for an instant, it appeared as if he’d done just that.

The ball scorched off Isbel’s bat, toward deep right field. In Yankee Stadium, Isbel’s smash would’ve been a homer. At Kauffman Stadium, home of the league’s most spacious outfield, it fell safely into Juan Soto’s glove. The threat — and, effectively, the game — was over.

Two innings later, after Holmes and Weaver calmly sent the Royals on vacation, Judge caught the final out on a flyball to center. Upon doing so, he pumped his fist and jogged toward the infield to celebrate.

In all, it was a good night for Judge and for the Yankees, one they enjoyed, fittingly, with geysers of Champagne in the City of Fountains.

The ALCS, New York’s 19th in franchise history, awaits.