Yankees enter Toronto with two stats in mind: AL East magic number and Judge’s home run record

TORONTO — The Yankees go into the Rogers Centre Monday night with two numbers hanging over their heads. The first and most obvious, was 61. Aaron Judge is one home run away from reaching the single-season American League and Yankee record set 61 years ago by Roger Maris. The other was two. The Bombers need any combination of two Yankees’ wins or Blue Jays’ losses to clinch their first American League East title since 2019.

“We’re obviously excited for that win, to clinch but I think the ultimate goal is not clinching the division,” Nestor Cortes said Sunday night. “The ultimate goal obviously is going to be the World Series so the guys are excited. Obviously we’re looking forward to that game and we’re looking forward to that moment. But there’s a lot of work to do. We just can’t stay back and be complacent right by winning the division. I think we need to keep going out there and keep making that statement.”

For Judge, the plan to win the division, advance in the playoffs and reach the home run record appears to be  the same.

“Stay focused, don’t try to do too much, keep doing what we’ve been doing the past couple days staying aggressive,” Judge said after Sunday night’s rain-shortened win over the the Red Sox. “Have quality at-bats, pass a baton the stuff we’ve been doing, you know, all year so, you know, especially when it comes down to crunch time like this, don’t overthink it won’t be where we want to be.”

A win over the Blue Jays gives the Yankees a division title and secures the No. 2 seed in the American League playoffs. That comes with a first-round bye and home field advantage in the division series. Considering the Yankees brutal August, it’s a relief they are at this point. It took winning 15 of their last 19 games to get here.

“I think as a team, we never panicked,” Cortes Jr. said. “We never thought that there was a sense of urgency. Even though we were in a tough stretch. But we relied on the guys that were in there. We were obviously the best team the first half, hit a rough patch and obviously I think that when we were in there we said you know the weather will pass and we were just helping out each other and not blaming each other and I think these past 10 or 20 days have been different for us and we’re playing great baseball now and hopefully we’ll continue.”

The Bombers hit 35 homers to power that run, including nine from Judge.

He leads the majors — by a wide margin with Kyle Schwarber second with 42 — with 60 homers, but he’s going through a drought. After hitting No. 60 on Tuesday night, Judge has gone five games without a home run. He’s only had a home run drought that long four times this season.

Every time he came to bat over the last five nights, the sold-out crowd at the Yankees Stadium rose and held up their camera phones, hoping to record history. There was an eerie quiet of expectation as each pitch was thrown and then — even for doubles — a groan of disappointment. His family has been in the ballpark since the team returned from a road trip to Milwaukee on Tuesday night and Maris’ family has also been there to wait and congratulate Judge if he breaks their father’s record.

It’s been a lot, but Judge has continued to downplay it.

“I’ve played in New York for six years now, this is par for the course, especially the playoff games we’ve had, opening days are hectic,” Judge said. “It’s just it’s just another game to me.”

Judge is 4-for-15 with six walks since his last home run. Monday night, he faces Blue Jays’ Kevin Gausman, who he has gone 8-for-22 against with three homers. All of those, however, came back in 2017. Judge has only hit one home run in the Rogers Centre this season. He is also just 0-for-5 with a walk against Gausman this season.

The 30-year old who is playing for a lot more than history this season goes into Monday’s game slashing .238/.314/.444  with three homers and 21 strikeouts against the Blue Jays this season.