The Yankees didn’t make it easy on themselves Monday night in Minnesota, but they got the finish they needed anyway.
Through seven innings, New York looked headed for a night of frustration. The defense got sloppy in the sixth, with Ryan McMahon losing a liner, George Lombard Jr. getting a ball tick off his glove, and Spencer Jones turning a game-tying single into a lead-flipping triple while Will Warren got left exposed in the rain. At nearly the same time, the Blue Jays launched a three-run homer to grab the lead back from Detroit, and for a moment it felt like the Yankees’ playoff-clinching hopes were slipping away.
Then the eighth inning arrived, and everything changed.
The Yankees broke loose for six runs in the frame and rolled to an 8-3 win. The weather, which had been miserable all night, suddenly looked a lot more manageable after all. And with the Blue Jays also losing, New York got the result it came for.
A big chunk of the damage came against AJ Minter, a pitcher with a strange history in this whole Yankees-Mets universe. He came in with runners on first and second and the game tied in the eighth, a move that prompted the obvious question of why he hadn’t already been in there earlier when it was only a one-run game. On this soaked, messy night, he wasn’t up to the task.
Ben Rice delivered a tough left-on-left at-bat, fighting off a 3-2 pitch over a drawn-in infield after Anthony Volpe and Jose Caballero had double stolen. Two batters later, Aaron Judge crushed his first home run since returning, a massive shot to the second deck in left that nearly reached the third.
Minter had to absorb it all on a wet mound, with his hat soaked through, roughly a year and a half after joining the Mets and making himself a memorable part of that Juan Soto press conference.
The moment also brought fresh fuel to the conversation around Minter and his comments about Yankees fans. He had been tormented by the Yankees after questioning the authenticity of their fanbase, and Monday’s scene only gave that group more to celebrate.
For Yankees fans, though, the bigger point was simpler: the team got the win, got the clinch, and got Judge’s latest big swing when it mattered most.
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