Yankees win AL East title with 10-1 victory over Orioles behind Judge, Stanton and Cole

New York Yankees won AL East title for a first-round bye in playoffs, dispatching Baltimore Orioles with a 10-1 victory Thursday night behind Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Gerrit Cole.

When Cedric Mullins hit a game-ending groundout to shortstop Anthony Volpe, Yankees came out of dugout and formed a brief jumping huddle between mound and second base.

New York improved to 93-66 and and will open its 59th postseason at home Oct. 5 in a best-of-five Division Series against a winner of next week's wild-card round. Yankees will have five days off following Sunday's regular-season finale.

“We’ve known we h to play well here down stretch to put ourselves in position to win division,” manager Aaron Boone said Tuesday. “You never know what happens when you get into tournament. It’s about peaking at those times, too."

Judge hit his major league-leing 58th homer, going deep for fifth straight game and increasing his RBIs total to 144, most in big leagues since Ryan Howard's 146 in 2008. Stanton hit his 27th homer and h four RBIs, and Cole pitched 6 2/3 innings of two-hit ball.

New York arrived home this week needing one win to take AL East crown but lost consecutive games to second-place Baltimore (88-71), putting celebration on hold.

Trying to hold off AL Central champion Cleveland for home-field vantage throughout American League playoffs, Yankees (93-66) have a one-game le and hold tiebreaker over Guardians (92-67)

“Nothing’s been easy for us this year. Shouldn’t expect it to be now. But we’ve kind of persevered and kind of grinded our way through all of it,” Boone said following a 9-7 defeat Wednesday night.

After missing postseason last year for first time since 2016, Yankees won ir 21st division title, including first half of 1981 split season.

Cole, reigning AL Cy Young Award winner, figures to start ALDS opener, n an off day is scheduled for Oct. 6. Carlos Rodón likely will start Game 2 on Oct. 7, and Boone would be left to decide among rookie Luis Gil, Clarke Schmidt and Marcus Stroman for Game 3 on ro Oct. 9.

Cole could return on normal four days' rest for a potential Game 4, and Rodón would be available on regular rest if a Game 5 is needed at Yankee Stium on Oct. 12.

After a season of spurts and slumps, New York clinched no worse than a wild-card spot Sept. 18 and celebrated with a booze-filled clubhouse bash in Seattle. Yankees were 50-22 in mid-June, went 30-38 until early September and have won 13 of ir last 19.