Yankees’ Aaron Judge makes bold statement with season on line after Game 3 choke

CLEVELAND — Aaron Judge’s amazing record-setting year, 62 homers in the regular season plus one in Saturday night’s Game 3 Division Series meltdown, could end on Sunday night.

One more loss and the Yankees will add yet another year to the franchise’s streak of no pennants and no World Series titles. This would make it 13 since Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera won their fifth rings in 2009.

Saturday night’s collapse, a 5-3 ninth-inning lead turning into a 6-5 loss to the Cleveland Guardians, could be Judge’s last game with the Yankees. No. 99 is headed for free agency after the World Series and may get his pot of gold from the Yankees or someone else.

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That wasn’t on his mind after the Yankees blew Game 3 to go down 2-games-to-1 in their best of five.

Winning Game 4 was.

In fact, Judge kinda, sorta predicted a season-saving win Sunday night with Gerrit Cole starting Game 4 on regular rest.

“He’s our ace,” Judge said. “He’s pitched in big games for us. He always goes out there with intensity and we’re going to match his energy and go out there and take this back to the Bronx.”

This was no Joe Namath guarantee, but it was Judge showing confidence in his club that it will not be killed off in Game 4.

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“We lost a tough one.” Judge went on. “We just have to come back and do our thing and take it back to the Bronx. It’s as simple as that. This team has been dealing with adversity all year long. This is nothing new to us. We’ll keep our heads up, go out there (in Game 4) and just do our job.”

Judge finally did something at the plate in Game 3. After going 0-for-8 with a walk and seven strikeouts in the first two games, he dropped from first to second in the Yankees’ lineup and hit a two-run homer in the third inning, a 449-foot blast to center that tied the game 2-2.

But that was Judge’s only hit in four at-bats and he ended the night 1-for-12 heading into a do-or-die game.

“We have guys that have played in a lot of elimination games, a lot of games with seasons on the line,” Judge said. “So we just can’t look into it too much. Learn from the mistakes. Bring the energy. It’s as simple as that. We can’t sit here and sulk on it. We got a big game (Saturday night). We couldn’t get it done today.”

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Randy Miller may be reached at rmiller@njadvancemedia.com.

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