The Yankees without Aaron Judge showed why this might be their best chance to win with him

By Hannah Keyser, CNN

New York City (CNN) — As the New York Yankees’ young ace Cam Schlittler mowed down Boston Red Sox batters in a way that felt not only effective but deliciously vindictive, chants of “M-V-P!” rained down from the Bronx crowd.

There was a tinge of hometown bias to the honorific, but not enough to call it hyperbole. It was also a key sign of what’s different about these Bronx Bombers from past seasons.

Schlittler, the New England native now pitching in enemy territory, will almost certainly win the American League Cy Young award for his sub-2.00 ERA in his first full season. Playoff appearances don’t factor into awards voting, but Game 1 of the American League Wild Card Series was more than worthy. Schlittler is at his best in a big moment – especially if there’s the chance to piss off a bunch of his former fellow Bostonians. And so he did that and the fans declared him the most valuable in return.

“I mean, we already got an MVP in this locker room. He’s won three of them,” Schlittler demurred when asked about the cheers after the Yankees’ first victory of the series.

A dutiful deference to the captain. Even sidelined with a calf injury, Aaron Judge loomed large as the Yankees embarked on the run that they hope ends in a 28th World Series title. His absence from the introductions became a source of speculation on social media. Any incremental update to his status was fodder for pre-game questions even with a playoff series on the line.

The hyper focus is merited. Judge is arguably the greatest power hitter the game has ever seen. He has those three MVP awards Schlittler mentioned. The first was won the same year Schlittler was drafted out of Boston’s Northeastern College (Judge was Rookie of the Year while Schlittler was still rooting for the Red Sox in high school in Weymouth, Massachusetts) and the third was won just last season. This year, the Yankees had the best offense in the AL before Judge was placed on the injured list with a rib fracture at the end of May; they were bottom three the remainder of the season largely without him.

“If he were in there this whole season, he’d probably have it,” Schlitter concluded of Judge and the award some fans say he deserves instead.

Perhaps. It’s easy to understand how it might be sacrilege to suggest otherwise within these hallowed halls. The Yankees are an organization of icons, of men who became monuments. And maybe they will still erect a monument to Judge that mentions the 2026 season – but not for what he’s accomplished so far this year. If he has a hero moment on a bigger stage later this month, it will be because the rest of the team didn’t need him to get there.

In a routing, rousing, definitive sweep of the Red Sox in the wild card, the current iteration of the Yankees looked like the best chance the team has had to win it all with Judge. They looked like that because they won without him.

The stats from earlier this season, which suggested it would have probably been a successful – but not quite superlative – year for Judge, matter less than a simple fact: Judge will be 35 next year and he has already been great for nearly a decade. This is not to say that he is washed or his prime wasted. The Yankees have won a lot in the Aaron Judge era. They won because of Judge. In a sport that generally rewards complete, deep teams, Judge looks like someone who could carry a whole club himself and the Yankees’ results supported that supposition.

Except when it matters most.

The Yankees haven’t won the World Series in 17 years and MLB’s most famous franchise would like you know that, in a sport with 30 teams, their drought has left fans the thirstiest. It’s not because Judge can’t hack it in October – he hit .500 last postseason and the Yankees didn’t make it out of the division series – but it turns out there’s no conversion rate between individual accolades and championship rings.

It’s possible – just possible – that Aaron Judge’s peak years are behind him. He is the venerated veteran in a clubhouse getting younger in a way no individual human ever can.

The Yankees put another 6-foot-7 superman in right field (Spencer Jones), only this one never saw a second of the 20th century, which is maybe why he can turn a strikeout into a six-run rally through sheer hustle.

They have a different power hitter who competes for the home run title and has a six-RBI night to open the postseason (Ben Rice), and this one went from being drafted out of an Ivy League school in the 12th round to leading off for the Bronx Bombers. In Game 2 against Boston, New York had a starting lineup in which every guy got a hit and all but one scored a run. They didn’t need them all because they also have the best starting rotation in the sport.

The further into October they play, the more likely it is that the Yankees will get Judge back, potentially as soon as the division series on Saturday. They routed their longtime nemesis – outscoring the Red Sox 18-2 – and now they’ll face the winner of their division, a modern rival and a study in contrasts, in the Tampa Bay Rays. If Judge is on the roster for that series, it’ll be tempting to say the Yankees survived without him. But they didn’t, they thrived.

“We got a young, hungry team here that’s excited for the postseason,” Judge himself said, sticky with champagne amid the celebration that followed the sweep. “A lot of guys in their first postseason, so they’re excited to put on the show.”

This is still his team. They’re still better off with him healthy and contributing on the field. Any team would be. But Judge understands the effort it takes just to get a team to the stage where heroes are made. This year, the rest of the team had to carry him.

All the more reason to make the most of it.

“I’m going to play this game for a short amount of time and you only get so many opportunities to enjoy this with your friends and throw champagne around a clubhouse and spray people with beer,” he explained about why he kept the goggles propped atop his head even as the booze burned his eyes.

He said it makes him feel young. “Every single time.”

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