Yankees aren’t getting enough from Aaron Judge as star’s strange ALDS continues

TORONTO — There are 26 players on each side, hundreds of pitches thrown in each game and incalculable subplots and subtleties that determine whether the Yankees or Blue Jays win a baseball game. 

But maybe it can be crudely boiled down to this: The Blue Jays’ best player in Vladimir Guerrero Jr. stepped up with the bases loaded Sunday and delivered a grand slam; the Yankees’ best player in Aaron Judge stepped up with the bases loaded Saturday and struck out. 

It is a tiny sample size in a fickle game, but it has been a strange first five games of the postseason for Judge.

He is hitting and not nearly part of the problem, but arguably the best player in the sport has not been able to carry the club like he did for much of the season. 

Judge followed up a costly missed opportunity at the plate in Game 1 with an error and a few singles that arrived after the Blue Jays had built an insurmountable lead in Game 2, which spiraled away from the Yankees in a 13-7 demolition at Rogers Centre that put Judge & Co. in a 2-0 ALDS hole. 

Every game that Judge plays in the postseason becomes part of the legacy of maybe the best hitter of his generation.

The Yankees superstar may win his third AL MVP in five years after a regular season that featured 53 home runs and the slash-line triple crown — his .331 average, .457 on-base percentage and .688 slugging percentage all the best in the majors — but he has not yet had the same kind of presence or same kind of moments in October. 

Statistically, Judge is hitting well this postseason: Against the Red Sox and Blue Jays, he has gone 8-for-18 (.444) with two walks.

But his only extra-base hit has been a double, and he has totaled two runs batted in (which might require an asterisk, those two arising from Boston’s Jarren Duran dropping a fly ball off Judge’s bat and an RBI single in the seventh Sunday to cut the deficit to 13-3).

He scored his first two runs of the playoffs Sunday, when he rounded the bases on a Cody Bellinger home run that closed the gap to 12-2 and scored on a Giancarlo Stanton single that made it 13-7.

Judge’s production simply has not led to enough Yankees production. 

“Just trying to do my job,” Judge said as his club was pushed to the brink. “Get on base, drive guys in when they’re out there. Not trying to do too much, help this team. 

“What’s been great for us all year long is just kind of pass the baton, kind of what we did there late in the game. … Got to keep that going.” 

In Game 2, Judge walked in the first inning — the only base runner the Yankees would manage against Trey Yesavage.

Judge came up again in the fourth, worked a full count and then chased a high fastball for his fourth strikeout of October. By the time he received his next at-bat — which became an infield single in the sixth — the game was all but over. 

In a postseason in which Judge’s arm, recovering from a flexor strain, had burned him once when he allowed an extra base against the Red Sox, his glove failed him Sunday. 

In the second inning, Daulton Varsho lined a shot over Ben Rice’s head. Judge tried to cut the ball off before it reached the wall along the right field line — knowing both that Varsho is fast and that the Jays would try to test Judge’s arm that is not full strength — and he and the ball reached the wall at about the same time. 

“Took a tricky hop off of it,” said Judge, who watched the ball squeeze in between his legs and roll to the outfield wall, enabling Varsho to take third. 

As it turned out, which base Varsho occupied did not matter: Ernie Clement smacked the first pitch he saw from Max Fried for a two-run homer. 

Judge is not playing poorly. But with the Yankees one loss from elimination, they need more from their best player. 

“We’ve been playing with our backs against the wall all year, so it’s nothing new,” Judge said.