The Yankees’ long (two-day) national (tri-state area) nightmare is over.
After whiffing in their first two chances to secure the division, they finally won the American League East.
The road back to the top of the division took much longer, following last year’s abysmal fourth-place finish, but the Yankees have officially climbed all the way back to the top of the AL East with a 10-1 win over the Orioles on Thursday night in The Bronx.
In Game 159, with a party-like atmosphere from the 42,022 in attendance, the Yankees (93-66) nailed down the division by extending their lead over the Orioles (88-71) to five games.
Doing so ensured their playoff run will begin in the ALDS next Saturday at the Stadium against the winner of a wild-card round series.
The next box to check off during their final regular-season series against the Pirates this weekend is wrapping up the top seed in the AL for home-field advantage through the ALCS, which they can do with a combination of two wins or Guardians losses.
The clincher came together with Gerrit Cole spinning another gem, Aaron Judge crushing his 58th home run of the season and Giancarlo Stanton doing the heavy lifting with four RBIs on a home run and double.
The Yankees arrived home from a West Coast trip earlier this week needing just one win over the Orioles to officially dethrone the 2023 division champs.
The teams had spent most of the season neck-and-neck atop the AL East before the Yankees gained some separation over the last two weeks.
But the Orioles made them wait a bit longer to celebrate by winning the first two games of the series in what could be a preview of the ALDS.
In his final tune-up before Game 1 of the ALDS, Cole looked dominant for a second straight start.
He twirled 6 ²/₃ shutout innings, allowing just two singles and a walk while striking out five, tipping his cap as he walked off the mound to a standing ovation in the seventh.
After not pitching into the seventh inning in any of his first 15 starts, coming off an elbow injury that delayed his season two and a half months, Cole has now done it in back-to-back starts that have totaled 15 innings in which he has allowed just four hits and one run.
Orioles ace Corbin Burnes almost matched Cole as he stifled the Yankees across five innings, with the only damage coming on Stanton’s solo shot in the second inning.
But after the Orioles gave Burnes an early hook ahead of his expected start in the wild-card round Tuesday, the Yankees took advantage and blew the game open in the sixth inning.
Austin Wells drew a bases-loaded walk off lefty reliever Cionel Perez to make it 2-0 before Stanton cleared the bases with a bullet double to the gap for the 5-0 lead as the stadium erupted.
Anthony Rizzo capped off the inning with a two-run double, with the Yankees beginning to taste the champagne.
Judge then homered for the fifth straight game, tying a career-high, with a two-run shot in the seventh inning that gave him 58 on the year — four shy of his AL record with three games to play.
Alex Verdugo even got in on the party after entering the game in the seventh inning as a defensive replacement for Jasson Dominguez in left field, drilling a second-deck home run — his third of the second half — that made it 10-0 in the eighth.
