Yankees vs. Guardians score: Aaron Judge finally breaks through as New York takes 2-0 lead in ALCS

The New York Yankees defeated the Cleveland Guardians, 6-3, on Tuesday night to prevail in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series. The Yankees, who saw Aaron Judge finally break through with his first home run of the 2024 playoffs, now have a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series. 

Judge had three swings that produced runs in the game. He hit a pop-up that Cleveland shortstop Brayan Rocchio dropped with no outs and runners on the corners in the first inning. He hit a sac fly in the second inning after the Guardians opted to intentionally walk Juan Soto to load the bases for Judge -- who had just two hits in the playoffs entering ALCS Game 2. Judge then hit a two-run homer that put the game out of reach in the seventh inning.

New York led the entire game and won fairly comfortably despite a shaky outing from starter Gerrit Cole -- who gave up six hits and walked four batters in 4 1/3 innings but allowed only two runs -- and some baserunning mistakes.

Here are three takeaways from the Yankees' Game 2 win.

Aaron Judge breaks playoff home run drought

Three hits to start the second for the Yankees meant a 2-0 lead. Gleyber Torres popped out and Juan Soto came to the plate with one out and runners on second and third. Then Guardians manager Stephen Vogt made a controversial pair of decisions. He intentionally walked Soto to get to presumptive AL MVP Aaron Judge, likely due in part to Judge's great playoff struggles. Vogt also pulled his starter, Tanner Bibee after just 1 1/3 innings pitched. 

Judge hit a sac fly before Austin Wells struck out to strand two runners. 

It could've gone a whole lot worse, that's for sure. 

Those playoff struggles have been pretty widely discussed. Judge came into the game a career .204 hitter in the playoffs. His slugging percentage was an adequate .441 due to 13 homers, but he had gone nine playoff games without a home run, slashing .097/.256/.129 with 10 strikeouts in 31 at-bats since his last playoff longball. 

In the bottom of the seventh inning, Judge finally got into another one. 

That gave the Yankees a 6-2 lead with the Guardians only having six more offensive outs to work with. And the proverbial monkey is off Judge's back. That could well be bad news for the Guardians. 

Cole unravels, bullpen shines again

Yankees starter Gerrit Cole retired seven of the first eight hitters he faced and seemed in pretty good control of the game. He was able to work out of trouble in the third and fourth innings, but he couldn't even get out of the fifth. He ended up allowing nine of the last 15 batters he faced to reach base. His final line: 4 1/3 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 4 BB, 4 K. And again, that line started with two scoreless innings and just one hit allowed. 

The Yankees bullpen, however, has been excellent here down the stretch. Clay Holmes got two outs to finish the fifth and then Tim Hill, Tommy Kahnle and Luke Weaver brought it home. In all, that was 4 2/3 innings of one-run (Jose Ramírez took Weaver deep for a solo homer in the ninth) relief pitching. The Guardians' bullpen has rightfully gotten the lion's share of the attention between these two groups in the ALCS, but the Yankees' bullpen at the moment is formidable and it was on display in Game 2.

A fundamentally unsound game

This was a badly played baseball game by both sides, at least through the middle innings. One generally should expect more from two LCS combatants, but there were miscues all over the place. The Guardians committed two errors and the Yankees could've been charged with one (they actually were, but it was changed later to an infield hit). The Guardians could've been charged with more, too. 

The starting pitchers combined for 11 hits and five walks allowed in only 5 2/3 innings. The Yankees made two outs on the bases in the sixth inning by having Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Anthony Rizzo picked off of second base, which is generally both incredibly hard to do and a total baseball no-no. They did score a run that inning, though, because on Rizzo's hit, Cleveland right fielder Will Brennan couldn't pick the ball up cleanly via barehand, allowing Anthony Volpe to score instead of being held up at third. 

It wasn't just this game. Remember the wild pitches, among other things, in Game 1? Eight of the 16 runs this series so far have scored via an error, wild pitch, sac fly or groundout. 

In related news: The Yankees went 2 for 10 with runners in scoring position and left seven runners on base. Thanks to the Judge blast, the offensive numbers don't look bad, though, even though they had some help. The Guardians? They left 11 on base, thanks in part to 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position. 

What's next?

There's a day off on Wednesday before the series picks back up in Cleveland for Game 3 on Thursday night. Clarke Schmidt will get the ball for the Yankees while Matthew Boyd figures to be the Guardians' starter. 

The Guardians are now tasked with either winning four of the next five games or ending their season one step shy of the World Series. The bad news here is the road team going 0-2 to start LCS has gone 4-18 in the series. If we drop the home-or-road qualifier, only five teams have ever climbed out of an 0-2 hole to win the LCS. The most recent one? We don't have to go far back. It just happened last year. The Diamondbacks lost two games in Philly and then ended up winning that series in seven games. The others in the LCS: the 1985 Cardinals, 1985 Royals, 2020 Dodgers and, most memorably, the 2004 Red Sox. 

It can be done. It's just a very steep, uphill battle facing the Guardians.