NEW YORK — The last time the Yankees won a game to advance in the playoffs, their 7-2 ousting of the Oakland Athletics in the 2018 AL Wild Card Game, right fielder Aaron Judge remembers what happened in the bottom of the first inning at Yankee Stadium right before his two-run homer.
Leadoff hitter Andrew McCutchen didn’t just work a walk facing A’s opener Liam Hendriks.
“Cutch was pimping to first and it was funny,” Judge said Saturday after the Yankees whipped the Minnesota Twins 8-2 to take a 2-0 lead in their best-of-five Division Series.
McCutchen’s time with the Yankees was short but memorable, 25 regular-season games late last season and then five more in the postseason.
The Yankees fondly recall McCutchen making pitchers work and work and work after he joined them in an Aug. 30 trade from the San Francisco Giants. The five-time All-Star and former NL MVP hit just .253 for the Yanks, but he constantly got into long counts, and that led to 22 walks and a .421 on-base percentage.
The Yanks also remember how McCutchen, who now plays for the Philadelphia Phillies, would celebrate some of his Yankees walks the same way some hitters react to hitting a homer … with bat flips.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone was reminded of that during Friday night’s 10-4 Game 1 win when left fielder Giancarlo Stanton flipped his bat after one of his three walks.
“Cutch (did it) last year, which was cool because Cutch made a little competition of, ‘We’re going to control the zone,’” Boone said with a smile before Saturday’s game. “So any time that he would walk to lead off a game, it was a (bat flip).”
McCutchen’s mentality already had been adopted by the Yanks, but his constant grinding during at-bats helped made them even better at running up opposing pitchers’ pitch counts.
As a whole, the Yankees were good at making pitchers work last season, they were better at this year and it showed in the first two games of the ALDS.
In Game 1, six Twins pitchers threw 193 pitches to get through eight innings.
In Game 2, seven Twins pitchers threw 161 pitches in eight innings.
The Yankees would love hearing those numbers because they’re giddy about how they wear down pitchers even when they’re not scoring runs,
“That’s a strength of this team,” Judge said. “One through nine is gonna most likely get to a 3-2 count every single time. You’re gonna foul off some pitches, and then if you’re not going to pitch to us, we’ll take our walks.
“No one’s selfish, and that’s what makes this team so great. We get into that bullpen early, and when we’re able to get to a bullpen early, especially in a series like this, it helps you out not only in that game, but the next couple games down the road.”
McCutchen’s presence for part of last season helped the Yankees master this art.
“Cutch did a lot of great things over here,” Judge said. “He’s a guy that fit right into this mold of working the count. If it ain’t in the zone, he ain’t gonna swing. We fed off that last year and now even more this year.”
Randy Miller may be reached at rmiller@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @RandyJMiller. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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