How Don Mattingly feels about chance to eliminate Yankees in their own house

It was almost exactly 30 years ago when Don Mattingly got one of the biggest hits of his career: a go-ahead homer off Andy Benes in Game 2 of the 1995 ALDS, the first Yankees playoff appearance in 14 years and the only postseason series of Mattingly’s career. 

And it happened at the previous Yankee Stadium in what proved to be Mattingly’s final home game. 

He’s been back to The Bronx as a coach and manager plenty of times since, even after leaving the Yankees coaching staff following the 2007 season, but on Tuesday, he’ll have a chance to clinch a playoff series win at the Stadium if the Blue Jays can close out the Yankees in Game 3. 

Mattingly, who serves as John Schneider’s bench coach in Toronto, said he’s not worried about the past as he tried to help Toronto get their first playoff series win since 2016. 

“It’s been different coming here with the Blue Jays than with the other teams I’ve managed,” Mattingly said before the Blue Jays worked out at the Stadium on Tuesday. 

Mattingly noted that the Marlins clinched a playoff berth with a win at Yankee Stadium in 2020. 

“That was pretty cool,’’ Mattingly said. 

Still, that doesn’t compare to this time of year. 

“This is the division, the AL East,” Mattingly said. “When I came with Miami and LA, it wasn’t the same. It’s not about any [animosity]. I’m not worried about that. This is about us.” 

True, but for what’s certain to be another sold-out crowd in The Bronx on Tuesday, there will be plenty of memories of Mattingly’s playing career — spent entirely with the Yankees — which he closed out in style in the ’95 postseason. 

There was the RBI single, as well as a double in a Game 1 win over Seattle, and then the famous homer that gave the Yankees the lead in the bottom of the sixth in Game 2, another victory, before they lost three in a row in Seattle to drop the series. 

Asked about the home run Tuesday, Mattingly looked out to right-center of the new Stadium and said, “It looks a little bit the same.” 

“That was one of my favorite teams, that 1995 team and ’94,” Mattingly said. “They were special teams to play on. And not just because they were two of the best teams, but you just loved being on those teams.” 

That’s not too surprising, considering the struggles the Yankees went through during most of Mattingly’s time as the face of the franchise in the mid-1980s until his retirement. 

After stints managing the Marlins and Dodgers, Mattingly is with Toronto and said being back in The Bronx isn’t a distraction as he looks toward a long October run. 

“We just want to take care of business,’’ Mattingly said. “It’s been a fun year and very rewarding for the team and Schneider.” 

They are in excellent position to do so, but that ’95 Yankees team is an example of a team winning the first two games of an LDS, only to drop the next three. 

Certainly, when Mattingly and the Yankees took that lead over the Mariners, it would have been hard to expect that to be the end of Mattingly’s career. 

And he insisted it won’t be on his mind Tuesday. 

“That was a long time ago,” he said.